Dubsmash Deluge Hits Social Media

The app that allows anybody with an Android or iPhone to voice famous movie dialogues and sound just like the actor, is trending big time, even with the stars themselves
Dubsmash Deluge Hits Social Media

CHENNAI: Admit it. There are times you wanted to sound as awesome as our Superstar in Baasha, but were instead at the receiving end of your friends’ choice words that left you on the verge of tears. But no more. With Dubsmash, the app that has been going viral on social media, you can actually belt out a Padayappa line or for that matter a Vadivelu dialogue and sound exactly like the actor’s themselves.

The app for Android and Apple, that has been rated above four out of five in both platform stores, lets you take a selfie video while simultaneously mixing it with any sound — so you can lip sync the dialogue while Arnold Schwarzenegger as Terminator says ‘I’ll be back’ in the background.

Social media has gone into a tizzy, with Dubsmash videos swamping Facebook feeds and Twitter — on the latter, it received a whopping 4.54 lakh mentions in the past 30 days alone, according to analytics engine Topsy. Kollywood celebrities too have jumped on the Dubsmash bandwagon — actors Simbu, Premgi Amaren, Vishal with Suri and Radhika Sarathkumar with her daughter and composer Anirudh are some of the celebrities who’ve put up their Dubsmash videos.

What makes this app, which Play Store claims has been downloaded some 1-5 crore times, so popular here? S Aravind (known as SA), a stand-up comedian, thinks it “plays right into the hands of the rich pop culture we have.” “Our Tamil culture has so much in terms of references, moments and jokes,” he says. In fact, two of the most popular characters on Dubsmash here are comedians Vadivelu and Goundamani, who have a trove of rib-ticklers to their credit.

G Sriram, a networks engineer, says he tried Joey from the popular sitcom Friends’ ‘How you doin?’ and ‘Baasha. Manick Baasha,’ while another techie, Parthiben Elango, who did Vadivelu’s ‘Ahaan’ reaction talks about the ease of the app. “If you’re one who uses cinema dialogues in real life, this is for you,” he observes.

Aravind feels it’s more about figuring out what goes with your face and personality. “I did several videos and realised that the frantic nature of a Vadivelu dialogue went well with the way my face looks,” he says, adding that this kind of sync is just as important as the lip sync.

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The New Indian Express
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