Home World News Asia Post-apps’ ban, creators migrate, but fans don’t | India News

Post-apps’ ban, creators migrate, but fans don’t | India News

by Bioreports
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In the week since India banned 59 apps with links to China, “stars’’ on platforms such as TikTok and Likee have migrated to Indian ones like Roposo, Chingari and ShareChat but their fans and followers have not. It’s still early days though and the tide could change.
As of now, however, Dhanraj ‘Prakash’ Chavan, who had a following of 8.5 lakh on TikTok, has been left with just nine on Roposo. Mahesh Kapse, a finger painter, went from 12 lakh TikTok followers to two on Roposo. And brother-sister duo Sanatan Mahto and Savitri Devi have 67 Roposo followers now, down from the 27 lakh they had on TikTok.
For content creators from rural and suburban areas, virality had translated into money as much as fame. It was a lot of hard work — to put together a 15-second video, farm hand Dhanraj would spend two hours to strike the right note to his dance moves and then request a passing goat herder to hold the camera phone for the recording – but it was worth it. The 27-year-old partially blind farm worker from Jamde village in Maharashtra’s Dhule told TOI, “On November 22 last year, I uploaded my first video on Vigo. I didn’t know much about social media. My brother told me a ‘k’ next to the likes meant it was viral.”
On June 29, the day India banned the apps, TikTok was the fourth top free Android app in India. It had 200 million users at the time and a rating of 4.1 on PlayStore. Most banned short video apps had been on the top charts — VMate, Bigo Live and Likee. The space left by them was taken over by Indian short video apps — Roposo is the top Android app across all categories as of Monday, Moj is third, Chingari fourth, ShareChat fifth and Mitron sixth.
With many Indian apps vying for space, the user base seems to have been split and that could take time to consolidate. But that time means lost money — those with large follower bases would land brand deals. “As a farm worker, the most I could make was Rs 150 in a day, but only in the rainy season. With these videos, I had started making Rs 35,000. I’m back to zero now,” Dhanraj said.
“When we hit 10 lakh followers, we got Rs 3,500 from TikTok. It was just before the ban,” said Savitri, the 25-year-old from Kushmantand village near Dhanbad in Jharkhand. She had shot to viral fame along with her brother Sanatan with their dance videos in lockdown.
Others had just seen a sliver of a chance but think they have missed out. “When we hit 10 lakh followers, we got Rs 3,500 from TikTok. It was just before the ban. In fact, the day the ban was announced, one video of ours had got 12 lakh likes. We were hopeful,” said Savitri Kumari, a 25-year-old from Kushmantand village near Dhanbad in Jharkhand. She had shot to viral fame along with her brother Sanatan Kumar Mahto with their dance videos in lockdown. On Roposo, they have 67 followers. They used to have 27 lakh on TikTok. Their father is a marginal farmer, whom Sanatan helps during the week. He takes dance classes over the weekend. “This is what my brother wanted to do since he was a child — dance. He had tried building a base on YouTube earlier, but it never took off. It was different on TikTok. It seemed easy.”
For Mahesh, too, his viral fame was built around a childhood aspiration. “Since I was nine years old, I wanted to become an artist. I never thought it would one day make me a celebrity,” he said. He had joined TikTok in April, just after the lockdown began. As his follower base grew, his presence was noticed. But with the ban, he lost out on three offers for brand deals that could have helped him monetise his following. He is out of a job and could have helped his family of five. But he sees no choice now. “I’ll have to start over.”

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