The long and short of viral FB pages
Founded by
Alok Jaiswal
Started
March 2016
About
After running a page for an NGO, which is 18,500 likes strong, one would presume that Alok Jaiswal’s personal page Snippets from the empty diary, will have no qualms earning thousands of likes in no time. But this Hyderabad-based youngster did not start the page for the likes.
“I just want to express myself and wish that people find comfort in them,” says the 26-year-old. Not once has he shared the page with any of his 2,000 Facebook friends, as he relies solely on word of mouth. His ultimate dream is to be a writer, but he also believes that he has a lot to learn.
“I want to respect the language and be able to write the right way,” says Alok, who currently works at Amazon. Language is an art which Alok has the patience to learn, but as of now, he is happy that people find comfort in his words, “after all, that’s why we have words anyway,” says Alok.
Founded by
Rahul Kaushik
Started
September 2016
About
Rahul Kaushik used to write in Hindi, then he switched to English because “if you write in Hindi, you are considered to have a low intellect.” He was later disillusioned by what he calls the ‘wannabe writers groups’, who trade a like for a like and praise for praise.
The aspiring author even submitted his poetry to Facebook pages that asked for contributions, but never heard back. Maybe that’s why he makes sure that on his page, The Melting Words, he replies to each message (up to 300 a day) — some to praise his work and others to ask for advice. “I had to cut down on sleep to make this happen. Thank God I’m single!” exclaims the 29-year-old Delhiite. But Rahul confesses that he doesn’t know poetry jargon. He just follows his own creative streak and firmly believes, “If you do something creative and it doesn’t touch people’s lives, then what’s the point?”
Founded by
Mohit Kumar
Started
July 2015
Likes
About
Mohit started The Scribbled Stories so that “the tales that I scribbled at the end of my books saw the light of the day.” At least, that was the intention back in July 2015, when Mohit, who turned 18 just three months ago, started the page. Soon, he bowed down to the 50,000 requests asking to be featured on the page, and opened the platform to others.
Now, they have 24 writers on board, the youngest being a 16-year-old student and the oldest being a 26-year-old PhD scholar, which helps with the content.
When their posts gained more and more traction, Mohit was convinced that the competition to ‘cat gifs or memes’ had arrived. User-generated content, he says self-admittedly, is not a novel concept. Journals and magazines have been doing this for ages, even before BuzzFeed and Thought Catalog adopted it.
Founded by
Deepak Jain
Started
January 2016
Likes
About
Started in January 2016, it took Deepak Jain, who started Tales Xpress, eight months to go from one like to 10,000, three months to reach 20,000, and just three days to a staggering 40,000 likes. All it took was one post on the Bengaluru molestation issue, which was shared by actors Rishi Kapoor, Vidya Balan, rapper Raftaar and others.
Deepak, who is currently working on a book-sharing app, simultaneously runs the Facebook page. While most tales are written by him, “we also publish select works, but very few,” says the 28-year-old from Noida, who follows absolutely “no procedure”, to come up with his posts. Deepak addresses current issues through his posts and for him it’s all about the “right time and the right people.”