Addicted To ‘Likes'

If you think you are overdosing on social media, influencers have it 10 times worse

- Anjuly Mathai

If exuberance on social media had a face to it, it would be that of Lilly Singh, Indo-Canadian comedian, influencer and TV personality. The queen of YouTube rules the platform with an iron hand of humour, which she deploys mercilessly at the dourest of her viewers; few emerge unscathed. Singh has a solution to all of life’s ills. Suppose your boyfriend’s reply to your ‘I love you’ is a dreaded ‘Thank you’. She recommends ‘bro-zoning him’; censoring the word ‘love’ every time he tries to use it; or making ‘I love you’ so common, the lucky recipients might include the local pizza delivery guy or that irritating chap who has been trying to sell you a cheap data plan. Statutory warning: Don’t watch the video while in office, or you might find yourself trying to smother a chuckle when your boss is going on about work-flow charts and quarterly reports.

Many influencers would chop off their right hand and sell it on eBay to get the kind of following that Singh has. As though her charm was too potent to stay online, it spilled offline. She became the first queer woman of colour to host NBC’s Late Night show, sat on the panel of judges for Canada’s Got Talent, and became the New York Times best-selling author of How To Be A Bawse (2017) and Be A Triangle (2022).