“WHEN PEOPLE MEET ME, IT’S AS IF THEY EXPECT ME TO ABUSE, RANT AND BE RUDE IN REAL LIFE TOO”

–AJEY NAGAR, SOCIAL MEDIA STAR

FIGHTING THE FLASH

Ajey is known for celebrity roasts and marathon gaming streaming sessions, and has recently forayed into music and shortform videos, including one that’s a satirical take on cancel culture. And it all began when he was in class VIII.

That’s when he got his first Playstation, which turned his life around “in a weird way,” to the point where he’d nearly cut off all connections with his friends and the real world.

“For the next two years, all I did was sit alone in my room playing games like an introvert,” he recounts. “But it also allowed me the liberty to learn about game development.”

Nothing would prepare him for the fame, and the varied reactions he would get for his videos—not all of them pleasant.

“When I started doing this, my aim was just 50,000 subscribers,” he says. “But when I reached 10 million, I blanked out. I’ve been very unlucky in life otherwise and this was the only time something had worked out.”

When I put to him a line from the recently released trailer of Baz Luhrmann’s upcoming film, Elvis, where Austin Butler’s character says that “it could all be over in a flash”, Ajey acknowledges the impermanence of his own fame, but adds that he can’t possibly let himself be carried away with thoughts of it all ending in ‘a flash’.

“Of course, there will always be someone better but all I can focus on is my creation and what I do with the responsibility that comes with it,” he says. “As humans, we’re fragile creatures, and whenever I’ve let my fame get to my head in the past, life has slapped me back to the ground.”

He says that it helps that his audience is growing with him, since he started out when he was 16. “The things they are going through, I am going through too. I don’t have a fatherson relationship with my audience,” he states.

PUSHING BOUNDARIES

Ajey would be lying if he said that hate comments, accusations of him being homophobic and transphobic through his videos don’t affect him.

“The other day while streaming, I got a stray comment from some user asking me why I make such videos,” he reveals. “Even that got to me.”