If you can high jump over the trolls, sprint past the outrage, climb over influencer activity, push through the promoted posts, slide out of your DMs, and army crawl under the anxiety fever dream it often is… you’ll (re)discover that the Internet is packed with (dumb dogs, asshole cats, sleepy ferrets and) screamingly funny people. Between hot takes on Twitter, memes and quick videos on Instagram, Facebook, and the wild wild world of TikTok, you can scroll through your phone for hours without noticing.
Here are our favourite accounts to scroll through on good days. And bad days. And three weeks of #selfisolation and #socialdistancing, as we try to get through the #coronapandemic together.
José Covaco
We’ve already pledged our allegiance to this guy, and it holds. We have no idea how his synapses (mis)fire, how he makes any money, if he has any friends in the real world…and frankly, who gives a shit? All we want is for him to document everything he’s doing at all times. And all we know is that even though he’s constantly giving us Vine-style content, Misheard Lyrics series, the KaanMasti podcast, gaming hacks, hot takes on the biggest headlines of the week, and everyday glimpses into his life as a parent, it’s still not enough.
Kusha Kapila
She joined iDiva as an assistant fashion editor but when they wanted to experiment with video formats they roped her and colleague Dolly Singh in. Boom. DJ Aarti? Viral. Delhi aunty? Viral. Practically anything these two did? Viral. All that riyaaaz, and Kusha has gone on to create some of the Indian Internet’s most well-known personalities. We’re looking at you, Billi Maasi. And while there’s no getting over how funny she is, there’s so much more to her brand of celebrity. Case in point: Kusha never shies away from expressing (what may be) unpopular opinion, calling trolls out and using Instagram to talk about difficult and taboo topics (Kavita really does not hold back in her kavitas).
Akshar Pathak
Easily one of the most popular content creators in 2020, it’s no wonder Akshar Pathak has over 450K followers on Instagram and 1.9M followers on Twitter. The Art Director at Zomato, he’s the brain behind some of their best print campaigns but he’s also famous for his byte-sized truth bombs, contradictions and existential crises that no one needs but everyone wants. In fact, we think that the only thing more popular than Akshar Pathak right now would be a petition to sign Akshar Pathak up to be the official commentator of everyone’s life. Here’s our favourite Pathak posts from the last week:
Mallika Dua
The OG Filter Rani, Mallika Dua broke onto the scene years ago, but there’s still no getting over her brand of humour. And even though she’s been quieter than usual the last few months, she has the same rib-tickling effect on her 779K followers every time she does pop up on our feeds (of course we follow Mallika Dua—don’t you?). Among the things Dua is well-known on Instagram for are Parlour Didi, real talk and PSAs and, of course, giving social media challenges a very Mallika-spin (case in point: this video of her owning TikTok’s Gesture Challenge).
Of course she’s also been doing some pretty incredible things outside of Instagram too; Dua was a part of the Indian The Office, decided the jury awards for Koffee With Karan, hosted her own chat show, had cameos in a couple of films and launched her own jewellery line. And she did it all while balancing the full-time job of being kyaut. Wah!
Bhuvan Bam
If you’re on the Internet in any way or form, you know this guy already. His sketches catapulted him straight into YouTube’s big leagues and, in 2018, Bam became the first Indian YouTube content creator to cross the 10-million subscribers mark. Bam wears many hats; the YouTuber is also a singer, songwriter and comedian and uses all the tools at his disposal to create a hella engaging feed. Why we love him? He uses humour to issue important PSAs, while also entertaining his 8.4M followers on Instagram. Here’s his topical bit on surviving lockdown and social distancing as Coronavirus wreaks havoc around the world, from his series ‘Time to be a hero:’
Srishti Dixit
Formerly a celebrity/entertainment writer at Buzzfeed India, Srishti Dixit is currently one of Instagram’s most popular creators, with close to 200K followers. She first shot to fame when she began appearing in BuzzFeed India’s original videos and eventually became one of the company’s best-known faces. Today, she has crossed over to the freelance life, together with her cat Patches, and is killing this whole Work-From-Home game. In addition to posting regular sketches, hosting bizarre AMAs, entertaining song requests, decimating trolls and coming up with genius memes, she also hosts Netflix India’s Behensplaining, along with Kusha Kapila.
The Swinery
Oh man, if you’ve used Instagram at all this year, you know about The Swinery—the anonymous Pakistani Instagram account that has followers from around the whole world ROFLMAO-ing. Featuring hilarious Animoji characters like Blue Molvisaab, Lina Aunty and the foreign-returned desi boy (who deserves a bit of a smack), The Swinery is a repository of wildly-relatable hot takes, both on life in Pakistan and news around the world. From a paavam koala who has no idea that his teacher is sleeping with his father to the blue cleric who cannot help but break into song and the neighbourhood gossip who we all know, The Swinery’s stars are always wonderfully weird, entertaining and straight-up hilarious. After all, this IS the work of a standup comic.
Dolly Singh
Dolly Singh is no stranger to Instagram trolls. The senior content creator at iDiva has often interrupted her clutch-my-tummy-it’s-so-funny regular programming to talk directly to the online bullies that skinny-shame her or talk about the way she looks. And even her savage takedowns are funny.
While Singh and Kusha Kapila made their Internet debuts at the same time (and still come together for the occasional ‘South Delhi Daughters-In-Law’ video where Kapila plays the entrepreneurial ‘Forbes 30 under 30’ aspirant, Ananya and Singh is the coke-snorting and prissy, Natasha), the 26-year-old from Naintal has since found her own voice and identity identities. You’ve probably seen her on your own feed as Raju Ki Mummy, Guddi Bhabhi or Zeenat. Heck, you’ve probably been following her since South Delhi Girls first dropped. Good call.
Sharan Nair
A content creator from Kochi, Sharan Nair first caught our attention on Netflix India’s Grandma Reacts To series. The mini-show brought two generations of TV and movie-watchers together to review some of the most popular shows on the streaming platform (including Sacred Games and To All The Boys I’ve Loved Before), and Sharan and his Ammuma were standout reviewers. While Ammuma won the Internet for her wholesome yet no-nonsense reactions, Nair was her goofy sidekick. However, his 30-something-thousand followers on Instagram will attest to the fact that he’s a solid solo act as well (although we still live for Ammuma’s occasional surprise appearances on his feed).
It’s difficult to accurately describe Nair’s somewhat-oddball brand of humour; ‘The Art of Shaving – Car Edition’, ‘This is Not a Vlog 02 – Mosquito & Sharu Act in an Indian Tv Serial’ and ‘How to Reach Sri Lanka from Bandra’ have nothing in common, except that they underscore what we now know is true: Sharan Nair is relentless (and hilarious) in his pursuit for viral content.
Plus he made Kanan Gill laugh, y’all. Watch that wonderful thing happen here.
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