The wink that launched a million likes

Priya Prakash Warrier the overnight internet star is hogging the maximum spotlight thanks to her cute wink in a song in her upcoming Malayalam debut film 'Oru Adaar Love' directed by Omar Lulu. The song “Manikya Malaraya Poovi”, which was released in the magical Valentine’s week garnered 14 million views in a jiffy and was fodder to many memes on social networking sites like Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, WhatsApp et al.

The world has become a global village thanks to the internet and with its penetration, the medium holds the ultimate power to make anyone (good or bad) overnight sensation. And Priya fits this bill perfectly.

What may have been the reason for the viral fame of Priya’s wink – as it is popularly being referred to as. School love fondly called “Puppy Love” has always created a sense of awe and when seen on the screen people quickly go nostalgic about their school days.

And the cute on-screen romance between Priya and Roshan Abdul Rahoof filmed during an event in the school released online, caught the eye of netizens, who have endless power to make overnight stars. And, “Manikya malaraaya…”, sung by Vineeth Sreenivasan, has become a rage within hours of its release. The song is originally composed by Thalassery K Refeeque and revisited by Shaan Rahman and has been viewed more than 25 million times on YouTube since its release.

“It was all unexpected,” says the 18-year-old debutante Priya Prakash Warrier. “We did not plan the scene. Our director asked us to do something innovative, which will make an impact and we did this in one take. And since its release, the song is going viral and we never expected this kind of response,” she shares.

Priya garnered 2 million followers in 24 hours and created a record of sorts with her following jumping to 600 million followers on popular photo-sharing app Instagram. It is the third highest and she is preceded by American reality star Kylie Jenner and footballer Cristiano Ronaldo. A native of Thrissur in Kerala, Priya reiterates that she had never imagined that a single scene from the song could change her life overnight.

“I never thought all these would happen in one day. Many people appreciated me since the day of the song release. I felt really happy. Messages keep coming, my friends said that their friends and relatives are sharing the song and memes and it feels nice. I am grateful to everyone,” she said in an interview.
Humour has taken a new turn in the world of internet. The memes are going so viral that the netizens have not spared Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Delhi CM Arvind Kejriwal and even the most controversial President of the US Donald Trump. We can see the reactions of the former in the memes when Priya winks.

Now the video between glances exchanged between Roshan and Priya, which ultimately culminates Priya winking has become a matter of international interest, with Vloggers from across the globe are sharing their views about the cute wink.

This overnight fame online is not a new trend, and does not come to only the best. It’s just not Priya and Roshan who are on the cloud nine overnight. Pooja Jain, popularly known as Dhinchak Pooja, with her sensational song (no one knows why) “Selfie maine leli aaj”. The song reached the echelons of success. People went crazy for the song as it is so “bad” that it is good. She followed it up with “Dilo ka shooter hai mera scooter” and as the fate would have, it became viral too.

Her popularity made her become a participant in the most-watched reality show ‘Bigg Boss’ Season 11, where the host of the show Bhai (Salman Khan) shook a leg when Pooja was crooning on the stage. She has around 353k subscribers on her YouTube channel.

When the question arises why people like this have such success and following. The answer is simple - people find it so funny that they can’t stop themselves from sharing with friends and watch it multiple times. This genre is called ‘Cringe-pop’; it is so bad that it becomes viral. And once you have a following then it certainly implies that you broke the barrier and now you too have become popular sans talent.

Omprakash Mishra is one such example, who rose to fame with his “rap” song “Bolna aunty aao kya”. Despite having sexist lyrics and bad rapping skills, the song garnered popularity where people took to the streets in Delhi, Mumbai et al to celebrate the song. With this Omprakash is now self-proclaimed ‘Rap king’.

Taher Shah, another stalwart in the genre of ‘cringe-pop’ rose to fame with his song ‘Eye to Eye’. The Pakistan-based artist soared to popularity and was even called in news channels for interviews. His next was ‘Angel’, though it was not as popular as ‘Eye…’ but it was cringe worthy.

When Badshah of Bollywood landed in a college in Pune to promote his film ‘Raees’ little did he know that the selfie clicked with the students will become viral for various reasons other than him. Saima Mir – a Kashmiri student, garnered popularity when she stood out in a group selfie. With one single picture, she gained instant fame and it will be no wonder if we find her in the tinsel town soon.

There are two famous chaiwalas in the world one is our very own Prime Minister and the other is Arshad Khan. The Pakistan-based handsome tea vendor found instant fame after his picture was shared by a girl on social media.

It took the internet world by storm, with many people (read women) going gaga over his looks and urging him to become a model. A casually snapped picture where the blue-eyed Arshad sports a stubble spread like a wildfire on Instagram, Twitter and Facebook. Even Shah Rukh Khan retweeted the pic stating “How sweet is this. Beauty lies in simplicity” (sic). Lady luck smiled on him and he is now a model.

With technology at our disposal one never knows when he/she will become an overnight celebrity. So, keep your phones ready, keep clicking and keep shooting - you too can become the new internet sensation.