You went all BINOD. Now hear from the creators on how to start a trend

Recently, social media was flooded with netizens going #BINOD. Even those who had no idea about the channel Slayy Point, became familiar with the same and went crazy about this trend.

It all started with a video put out by YouTube channel Slayy Point, where creators Abhyudaya and Gautami decided to explore the comments section in one of their videos. Soon, their sarcastic take on one such comment gave birth to a viral meme trend.

In conversation with Adgully, Slayy Point’s Abhyudaya Mohan and Gautami Kawale talk about their famous video BINOD, their USP in the pandemic situation and more.

Also read: Netizens go 'Binod' for the new trend

How did you come up with the idea of the video on ‘Why Indian Comments Section Is Garbage’ (BINOD)?

When we actually sat and read our comments sections, we found that there were some really bizarre comments that didn’t make sense at all. So, we went on to research about it more and found out that other YouTubers’ videos were also bombarded with the same. So, we thought of this idea of making a video on it, because the Indian comment sections really did look like garbage (laughs). And also, this guy named Binod just left his name in everyone’s comments section and randomly 7 people even liked his comment. We picked that up and made a video out of it.

Even the set of audience who don’t know about Slayy Point as a channel started talking about Binod. What, according to you, triggered BINOD to trend all over social media?

When you see the video, Binod just has 15 to 30 seconds of footage, we have mentioned other things as well in the video, but the audience picked only the name Binod and started making it viral by randomly commenting ‘Binod’ in everyone’s comments section. Binod is a very rare name and sounds funny as well. We’ve all heard of Vinod, we even crosschecked with our grandparents about the name Binod, and asked them whether the name even existed in their era, but they hadn’t even heard of it. So, I think the uniqueness of the name made it popular. Plus, this name has no face, so huge companies started using it as their marketing strategies.

What is your USP in this pandemic situation? How does your content give you an edge over others?

Our USP probably lies in being able to adapt the scripting and edit in a way that a lot of people have not yet realised. Both of us were shooting from our own homes instead of meeting up and shooting together like we usually do. Our content style, quality and upload frequency has remained more or less the same despite all the restrictions and lack of equipment/ shooting support.

How do you stay pertinent and relatable in this situation staying home? What are the difficulties you’re facing?

We just try not to lose our own element, if a sentence/ scene feels like something we ourselves would not say or do in real life, then we don’t add it in to the final video. The main difficulty that we faced was not having each other’s help to shoot, we are not able to shoot a lot of scenes the way we imagined or intended to, thus we constantly had to dumb down or tweak them, sometimes having to cross out very unique and cool concepts.

If not Vlogging, then what it would have been?

Gautami: I’d have become a psychologist!

Abhyudaya: I would have completed MBA and done a normal job or probably started my own business.

What opportunities do you think do newcomers have on this platform?

Newcomers on social media platforms have a lot of added advantage as compared to someone who started way back with content creation, as new age content creators have inspiration and success stories to look up to, they can easily avoid mistakes and learn from previous content creators who have created and paved path for the new ones.

What is that one thing that you would miss the most in the post-lockdown period?

We will miss our erratic sleep schedules and not needing to bathe and dressing up to meet people on Zoom calls (laughs). A very relaxed casual lifestyle will be missed.