Influencer Snehil Dixit Mehra on embracing BC Aunty tag, fighting trolls

Social media influencer Snehil Dixit Mehra started her journey in the entertainment business with a news channel, after interning with them and a trade magazine. Snehil bagged another opportunity of internship with a production house. However, it was because of her 20-second appearance in ALTBalaji’s ‘Apharan’ that made her a star overnight. Snehil’s character, BC Aunty (Bheri Cute Aunty), clicked with the audience.

It was during the lockdown when her one-minute comedy videos went viral and then she began her career as an influencer. Snehil is now making her television debut as stand-up comedian with ‘Madness Machayenge;. In an exclusive conversation with Adgully, Snehil Dixit Mehra talks about her show, her writing career and dealing with social media trolls.

On what attracted her to this show, Snehil says, “I really liked the concept of the show – there will be roast, gags and some part of reality. I think audiences have also exhausted themselves by watching similar kinds of shows. It is the need of the hour to change the format. The best thing about this show is that you can expect madness, besides I have my friends Kettan Singh and Paritosh Tripathi working with me. Whenever I sit with them I only laugh, and for the next three months I am going to be laughing a lot, so that was my idea to have fun and sometimes it is better to laugh at oneself. At the same time we will try to bring some happiness in the lives of some people. I am getting a chance to write for the show and learning a lot. It is not an easy job though.”

The stand-up comedian used to be a creative director before she started doing her own one-minute gig on social media. Snehil shares, “The journey has been nothing but beautiful, there have been ups and downs. I don’t care about the downs anymore. I always celebrate the smallest of victories. Nobody could have expected me at a certain age to become famous, to get so much love, so it is a blessing from the universe.”

When asked if she ever thought that the name BC Aunty will become so popular, replies, “In today’s world, if you name yourself it is okay, but if the audience names you, then you have arrived. I have been so fortunate that one video clip became so famous. On YouTube, people started asking after the release of the ‘Apharan’ trailer - Who is BC Aunty? That is how the name came into existence. When it became popular, everyone told me to latch on to it. This name is given to you by the internet, hold on to it. So, on Instagram I changed my name to BC Aunty. Now it has become so big that even if I want to change, I can’t change it!”

Like every writer, Snehil, too, faces writer’s block and she used to get upset about it. “Earlier I used to get worried about keeping posting videos, now I don’t take it seriously. Like they say ek maaro lekin accha maaro. You can’t keep cracking jokes and if they are not landing, then what is the point? Now I have stopped worrying about it. I have understood that when I write for myself I do better. If I perform on someone else’s script, it doesn’t connect. I need to believe in it to work. So, sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t, and when you are a writer you can just get angry at yourself and forget it. It is a good part because I am not answerable to anyone. My husband is my biggest critic. At times he tells me that the video is very bad and sometimes he likes it and tells me so. 99% of the time he is right. So, he is like my first audience, if he likes it then that means it is going to work,” she says.

Snehil never imagined receiving overwhelming feedback for her work on social media and says, “I never thought that it would go viral. I remember the date because that was the date I shifted to my new house. I was in the middle of shifting and I went to shoot for that one scene in ‘Apharan’ on July 4, 2017. That was the day my life changed. I did not think people would watch as it was barely there for a few seconds in the show. But when God decides to bless you then they find a way to do that.”

Many social media influencers face trolling and Snehil is no exception. When asked how she deals with trolls, she says, “There is a beautiful thought which says if you focus on the good things then good things will happen to you and if you focus on bad things then bad things will happen to you. I don’t really care about bad comments. Out of 100, if there is one bad comment then I should only enjoy 99 comments. That is what I believe. This is the only way to deal with it. Sometimes there is genuine feedback like there was one guy who messaged me about one video which I had made. It made complete sense that it might hurt the religious sentiments of people. I took it as genuine feedback and removed the video. Sometimes you get a chance to interact with your audience, but sometimes it is like ‘Ae moti what are you doing?’ Those things don’t matter. We take advice from people who have inspired other people. That is my thought.”