Social Media Week kicks off with Aditi, Bruce Lee and more

 The Social Media Week (SMW) couldn’t have returned to Bengaluru with a bigger bang.

Aditi Mittal, one of India’s first female stand-up comedians, packed a punch with her opening act at SMW’s launch here on Monday. Bruce Lee Mani of Thermal And A Quarter (TAAQ) fame had an exclusive album dedicated to social media. “Like Me,” he called it, sang it and electrified the motley crowd of social media addicts.

YouTube had made her big. She owed her daring fame to social media. “I’m half Sindhi, half Punjabi,” Mittal defined her identity.

For her, it was like “half Israeli, half Palestinian.” But that line in mirth was just an echo of what really made her big on YouTube: Two hundred and fifty satirical episodes of “Beauty and Brains,” a series completed in 17 days. “That got us over a million views. My career started that way on social media,” Mittal recalled.

Hungry for fresh matter

Yet, riding on fame, she was quick to realise that social media was demanding, voraciously hungry for fresh matter. “It is tough since it takes time to craft a joke. The key to survival on YouTube is that you must release a video every two to three days. That affects quality.” But often, she and her ilk would have no choice.

For Bruce Lee Mani, social media promotion of his music was never the first choice, it was almost an afterthought. He was brutally frank when he said, “Our music is best enjoyed when played in a room full of people. For us, social media is at best a tool, an interesting one, of course.”

A silver-lining

It was clear he wasn’t an addict when he baulked at what social media had become. “It has become a place where everyone is selling. Everything is about selling. Even a selfie is about selling. But it is a new technology, and will go through the evolutionary cycle,” said Mani. Yet, his critique of the platform had a silver-lining. Before internet, he explained, musicians had to get through the gate-keepers. “It wasn’t always merit that was recognised.”

Mani’s nuanced views on social media and the internet were clear enough in his satirical, musical take, captured in rock band TAAQ’s latest album ‘The Scene.’

“Spare me a thumb, I’ll check back every minute, I know I’m gonna win it. Like Me,” he rocked as the SMW switched gears for a full week ahead.