BENGALURU: Artistes can quit long queues, beam their videos on digital platforms and wait for their phones to ring. Akhila Damodaran writes about one such app, #fame. On it, live stream your video performances, receive requests from viewers and be spotted by production houses. Shah Rukh Khan is on it too!
Kabbadi Kabbadi!
Kunal Saluja had done shows on Television and radio but he tried digital platform for the first time with #fame. He says, “It is a unique platform. You need to come up with some fun, masaledar and factual content to keep your viewers engaged. Coming up with new concepts every day is challenging but fun.” He currently has about 6,000 followers and has hosted the pro-Kabaddi league.
Irfan Khan, CMO, #fame says that ten per cent of the traffic that comes on the platform produce their own content. “Most of them come to watch the videos. Comedy and music are the most popular genres on the platform,” he says and adds that, “We have a moderation team, which keeps a check on the content. If anything inappropriate is being created, we block the user instantly.”
Go Shopaholic!
Sugandhi Gupta, a BBA, III year student in Bengaluru now has about 1,000 followers. She says, “Live streaming is challenging but fun. I review online shopping platforms and places in the city. In future, I look forward to reviewing shopping places in other cities.” She does research about the place before she goes live at 4 pm every day.
Music Unplugged
Shruti Prakash, a Bengaluru singer on #fame, has been offered the lead role in a new television show ‘Ishq Unplugged’ on Channel V. “I started my career with the app. I came to Mumbai in 2015. I would attend karaoke nights with my friends and one of them suggested #fame.” She later got to know about auditions for the show and got selected.
Jabra Fan
Deepak Kalra, from Delhi, played a bit role of a character named Superman in the film Fan through the app. The Shah Rukh Khan fan who has been acting since 2012 says, “I joined #fame in 2015. Yash Raj Films noticed my work on the app and called me for auditions. SRK liked my accent. I shot with him for six days. I did not tell him until the last day that I am his Jabra fan. There were days when I would go to his home and request his guards to let me in. I would wait for hours there. When I told SRK about it, he just hugged me.”
Shah Rukh also spoke about Deepak on #fame. Deepak says, “He spoke about me for 40 seconds. I got emotional after watching the video.”
Lucknowi Tehzeeb
Jaivijay Sachan, a standup comedian, has over 40,000 followers on #fame and has become a star in Pakistan. He says, “That’s because I did a live show for the 20,000 students in Karachi University last month. They asked me to mimic SRK, Salman and also Narendra Modi.”