Those making content to get followers should give up: Malhan, the 'Triggered Insaan'

Nischay Malhan left his tech job at the end of 2018 to become a full-time YouTuber. It was almost like a gamble; Malhan’s father was extremely worried about his son’s future prospects. “He was paranoid,” recounts Malhan. But the 26 year-old YouTuber’s stance today stands validated — Malhan who is popular as ‘Triggered Insaan’ has amassed 26 million followers across two YouTube channels and another 4.6 million on Instagram.

“The reason behind starting my channel on YouTube is that I just wanted to do something where I could just be in my own place... there was nobody telling me what to do,” says Malhan. His father is now at ease and has approved of his son’s rather unconventional profession. “The main thing was that my father was happy with what I was doing. That is what mattered more at the end of the day,” says Malhan.

Having already established his credentials in the digital content space, Malhan, who has a separate YouTube channel dedicated towards gaming, now wants to build on the vertical and capitalise on it. “One thing that I have realised is that content will come and go, but gaming content is one such segment which I don’t think will ever fade away,” says Malhan pointing out how gaming continues to be popular among people of various age groups. Although the Indian audience is currently hooked to mobile gaming, the trend of PC gaming will pick up in the coming years, if not months. “In two to three years, PC gaming will boom and that is where I want to capitalise. I stream PC gaming a lot now. Gaming will be the next big thing in India,” says Malhan.

The content ecosystem has changed a lot and it will be quite difficult for newcomers to carve out a space for themselves, especially in long-form content. “In 2016-2017, before the Jio era, the number of people using YouTube was limited. Today, the number of people on YouTube has become so much that it is very difficult for people to grow. And for the existing ones, it is difficult to sustain,” says Malhan.

Also, the advent of short-videos has somewhat weaned away people’s attention from long-form videos. “It is very funny that I get more views on Shorts for some videos than my long videos. There was this one video that had 7 million views on my main channel and the same video got 25 million views on Shorts. (He doesn’t create exclusive videos for Shorts but runs the abridged versions of his long videos on Shorts). For the new creators, it is very very hard at the moment to grow in long-form content,” says Malhan.

Aspiring creators should create videos only if they enjoy it, not with an agenda of gaining followers. “Those who make content just to make followers, they should already give up. But if you are making content because you enjoy it, trust me in six months... one to two years, you will get followers. When you start enjoying, numbers won’t matter,” says Malhan.