Ready Steady Lol!

Aravind Subramaniam popularly known as SA, likes to describe himself as a filmmaker by profession and a stand up comedian out of frustration! He is probably one of the reasons why stand-up comedy has become a 'thing' in urban Tamil Nadu given that he was amongst the first few who dared to take on the challenge to get behind a mic and risk humiliation while trying to get a room full of strangers to laugh at his jokes and not at him! Fortunately for SA his pronounced 'Madrasi' tones, free-flowing humour and effortless body language worked with an initially reluctant audience. In no time he got everyone LOLing and ROFLing, and before he knew it he had created a new space for creative comedians like himself...

- Kaanchan Prashanth

Usually the progress is from being a comedian outside cinema and then getting into cinema. But you began as an assistant director and then moved out!

Yeah! Life is tough as an AD. You work at all odd hours and you hardly get any payment. I may have enjoyed the job, but getting my folks to understand why I did what I did expecting little in return, was the tough part! So moving from that into a space that was non-existent was only worse! I doubt they even understood what being a stand-up comedian meant.

Before you started earning likes in millions, there must have been videos with hardly any views, right?

Of course, but there was no feeling down and depressed about that. I did what I did because I loved doing it! I did not do it then and I don't do it now for the 'likes'. If you put out good content, you get a good response. It's as simple as that.

What about all the controversies & the haters that your content creates?