AIB roast video taken off YouTube

The controversial roast video of Bollywood actors Arjun Kapoor and Ranveer Singh has been taken off YouTube by the organisers, AIB. 

They, however, appeared to defend the content which has created a storm for being filthy, laced with expletives and improper in nature.

“The AIBKnockout: The Roast of Arjun Kapoor and Ranveer Singh” hosted by filmmaker Karan Johar was held on January 20 here and the video has gone viral on social media. 

It was attended by an audience of over 4,000 people, including actors Sonakshi Sinha, Deepika Padukone, Alia Bhat, filmmaker Anurag Kashyap and Karan’s mother Hiroo.

“Let’s just all take a deep breath. They’re just jokes. Unfunny, crass or whatever you want to call them, they’re still just jokes. The AIB Knockout video has been taken down. While we’d love to claim that it’s because so many people watched it that it broke YouTube, the truth’s a little sadder,” the AIB posted on Facebook and Twitter.

“People who’ve been following our work will know that we’ve always tried to experiment with content be it on Youtube or a live comedy show, with the sole intent of making people laugh and/or think. AIB Knockout was another such attempt to try something new and bring the roast format to a country where celebrities aren’t often known to laugh at themselves. To our pleasant surprise, we managed to bring together consenting adults who were willing to be made fun of by other consenting adults in a crowd full of (wait for it) consenting adults….,” the AIB said in a lengthy statement defending themselves.

It further stated: “….It was just liberating to be able to say those things, things that people have thought in one form or another privately for years. A lot of the laughter that night came from that spirit (there’s your answer, people who wondered why everyone was laughing at terrible jokes).”

The organisers and producers said that the video came with a clear disclaimer with several age and content warnings. 

“No one was forced to watch it, we didn’t buy airtime on every single TV channel on Earth to broadcast it. YouTube videos do not magically auto-play in front of you. And yet the videos got over 8 million views. Far more importantly, on the video page, the people who liked them outnumbered the people who disliked them by 10 times to one. Yes, ten times,” it said.