Niharika NM, the new social media sensation

Niharika NM, a 24-year-old Indian digital content creator, widely known for taking the Instagram community by storm in 2020 through her humorous and relatable Instagram reels. She has also been the only solo creator to be chosen as one of the global ambassadors of Creators for Change- a YouTube initiative twice in a row, which uses influencers to generate awareness and engage their audience regarding relevant social issues.

Niharika's video 'Living Alone 101' went viral on Instagram and has crossed 11 million views in just under 13 days. She has since grown and continues to grow exponentially as she has become one of the fastest growing content creators on Instagram. With just 100k followers on 17 October 2020, she crossed the esteemed 1 million mark on 17 December 2020, exactly two months later. Currently she has over 2.8+ million followers across all social media platforms and is growing. This puts her in an elite bracket of 0.32% of users who have this kind of reach (according to the Mention x Hubspot Instagram Engagement Report 2020).

Niharika was born in Chennai and brought up in Bengaluru, and her taste in comedy is extremely diverse. She counts everyone from Jim Carrey to Rowan Atkinson and Brahmanandam to Vadivelu, as well as Vivek, Santhanam and Vennela Kishore among her inspirations. "If all else fails, I turn to my friends and family because they're all absolute clowns, '' she says. True to this, her content often references them, especially her parents, whom she describes as "very traditional but also cool at the same time". Through her childhood, they captured her innate humour on video and are therefore very used to it.

Niharika has immense love for theatre. Growing up, she had always been attracted to plays and movies, but the idea of being a part of such productions seemed too wishful. Having been introduced to YouTube when she was in Class 10, but it was nearly three years later that she started expressing herself on the Internet through her videos. She gained popularity through short, funny skits, entertaining viewers with her own brand of observational comedy. She is known for her 'Types' video series covering everything from 'Types of Students Before An Exam' to 'Types of People at College'." Her "Types of Students Before an Exam" video went viral, garnering her 10,000 new subscribers in just a few hours the first time she decided to make content!

Niharika, in an exclusive converstaion with "The Hans India" shares about her journey and future projects. Let's have a look into it.

Tell us abvout your journey?

I'm still in awe of everything that my life has transformed into in the last year. From almost quitting social media to what my life is now, I'm beyond grateful. It almost makes me emotional when I try to process the kind of love I get for doing what I love doing. I sometimes still can't process the kind of love and attention I get from these amazing people that support me. This journey like any other has had it's ups and downs but I think I'm finally at a place in my life where I'm excited about the journey. I've strapped myself into the seat and I'm super excited to where life takes me because we're just getting started.

When and why you decided to be a content creator and chose the funny route, what was your family's reaction?

It all started in the second year of college when I picked up a camera and called it a hobby. All my life, my family and friends were the audience to all my performances that they never asked for until I realized I could do that on the internet with a larger audience. What started out as a hobby slowly became something that I felt really passionate about. Youtube was my first love but engineering had other plans for me. Balancing academics and content creation wasn't my strongest suit at the time until short format content brought my passion back to life along with letting me balance academics because my parents always said that as long as I got good grades I can do whatever I want for fun. That thing I did for fun is now my job and I couldn't have asked for a happier ending although this is just the beginning.

How do you deal with trolls online?

Honestly, I don't really care about what trolls have to say. I don't even go through comments or Dm's that are negative when I realize that's what they are at a glance. Even if I do happen to read them It doesn't bother me too much because I'm aware that I cannot be everyone's cup of tea and I'm okay with that.However, I also do have my days where I let something negative get to me, but my friends and family do a great job at not letting me fall into that rabbit hole. It's just that when you put yourself out there on the internet people are bound to have opinions and they're not always good ones. It's part of the job.

What do you do when creating content gets overwhelming? How do you give yourself a break?

I struggled with knowing how to deal with this for a really long time but lately I've really been getting into meditation, journaling and reading which seem to work in calming my nerves when I feel anxious. When I do however feel extremely overwhelmed, I usually turn off my phone, throw on a face mask, take a hot shower and basically turn my day into a self-care day which usually helps me feel better. I also FaceTime my best friends who make me feel like everything is going to be okay even when it's not haha.

Tell us about your future works.

I'm currently working on writing exciting new things to break out of the short format content that I'm now known for. If things go according to plan and the universe aligns with me you should see some very exciting projects in the next few months along with amazing collaborations with people you wouldn't expect in the very near future.