The New Cool

Two Instagram chefs, two web actors, two new-age fitness instructors and three digital photo artists come together discuss their ‘new professions’, and sustaining recall in the age of social media.

MAANVI GAGROO AND AMOL PARASHAR,

She’s a lover of all things iridescent (at least that’s what her Instagram bio reads) and he’s an “actor in front of the camera”. Together, they won over the Internet by playing siblings in the web series, Tripling (which is back for season 2). Individually, they were part of the OG gang of actors who took a chance on the digital medium. Fast forward to 2019, and their respective shows, Parashar’s Ready 2 Mingle and It Happened in Hong Kong, and Gagroo’s Four More Shot Please, are responsible for million-plus hits and countless shares across social media platforms.

THE TRENDSETTERS

Amol Parashar: We could call ourselves the OGs.

Maanvi Gagroo: We were the trendsetters, man. When we both started out, the digital space was more collaborative; we worked with smaller budgets. When it started doing well, the genre became a money-generating machine – the scale grew, sponsors came on board, the money was better...

AP: Really? I need to speak to my manager...

MG (laughs): Exactly, we have managers now. Amol, when did you get a manager? See, that’s growth.

AP: I agree. We have more work and enquiries than we can handle ourselves. When I started out, there were stories people wanted to tell, but didn’t know how to. Also, they didn’t know there was an audience that wanted to consume digital content.

MG: None of the web creators thought about that segment of viewers (say between the age of 15 and 35) who weren’t really interested in what television had to offer. Also, this group wanted shows that they could relate to.

AP: I agree. Breaking through the language barrier with homegrown content was the game-changer.