THE CONTENT QUEENS

With short and funny videos that instantly go viral, women content creators have defied the pandemic and upturned gender hierarchy

- Arman Khan

When Shraddha Jain, (@aiyyoshraddha on Instagram), quit her job in the television industry during the pandemic, digital content creation was the last thing on her mind. But in a year that has bucked and belied every trend, Jain knew she couldn’t rush anything. “The lockdown definitely gave me time,” she says. “You need to pause your life before making major life decisions. You need to do your thing and get out of the slump.” Jain escaped that slump somewhat dramatically. With bite-sized videos that see her take on several roles—harried mother, real estate agent, and doctor—she has had over 250,000 Instagram subscribers in splits.

Kusha Kapila, on the other hand, was 22 when she got her first digital job. “I have always been comfortable with change,” she says. Kapila, who has 1.9 million followers on Instagram, is today thriving in a market that is saturated with reels that often only rehash old comic tropes. Knowing she cannot take her audience for granted, the 31-year-old remains fiercely loyal to the characters she creates—everything else, social messaging included, is an afterthought: “When you see the character of ‘Mummy’, it’s not just all rants. She will talk about education policy, yes, but the idea is to arm your characters with messaging, not the other way round.”