Thoothukudi: Nani, a young fisherman from Visakhapatnam in Andhra Pradesh, who dropped out from school after the second standard, was once standing in his boat while his friend was shooting his video on a mobile phone. Nani delivered a dialogue from a movie starring south star Prabhas. Nani's friend put the video on Tiktok and it became an instant hit.
As it went viral, Nani gained a good fan following with more videos. After Tiktok was banned, he switched to YouTube and the followers continued with Nani attracting eight lakh subscribers within two years. Nani has now become an influencer and promoter of various brands. He also participated in ETV's 'Rechipodam Brother' programme.
A fisherman's boat was wrecked by a storm in Odisha recently with Nani coming to the rescue. His subscribers donated Rs 4 lakhs within four days for a single video made by Nani to support the victim. Young social media influencers in south India like Nani have become overnight stars with their social media base and extraordinary content.
The Youtube 'Thoothukudi Meenavan' is hosted by Sakthivel from 'Thoothukudi Revu' town in Tamil Nadu. Sakthivel strived for a government job after his degree but did not get it. This confined Sakthivel and his father with the stale fisherman's job of catching fish and hunting conch shells in the sea. Once Shaktivel made a video of one of his adventurous conch hunts and lakhs of people have seen it.
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Seeing the warm reception, Shaktivel's interest grew and he started uploading every fish catching on YouTube. He continued to talk about the coral reefs and other aquatic life being destroyed in the sea by human activity. The eco-consciousness in Shaktivel's videos is a USP that has increased his subscriber base to lakhs.
The impact of Shakivel's videos has attracted much attention with former Tamil Nadu Chief Minister Karunanidhi's daughter and Lok Sabha Member Kanimozhi also featured in his content. Kanimozhi also paid a surprise visit to Shaktivel's home even as she travelled far into the ocean with his family and tasted his favourite fish dish.
On the social service front, Shaktivel, with his income from YouTube, installed solar electricity in his neighbouring village, which did not have enough electricity. He also set up free tuition centres in his fishing village. Another YouTube channel 'Ungal Meenavan' (Your Fisherman) run by Kingston has 11.7 lakh subscribers.
Kingston belongs to a small fishing village called Mookkayur in the Ramanathapuram district of Tamil Nadu. Kingston's content features sea life in abundance, including dolphins, sharks, whales, octopuses, and jellyfish. As the YouTube channel clicked, Kingston set up a chain of restaurants in eight major cities of Tamil Nadu, including Chennai by the same name. He also sells fish spices and other food items. The innovative entrepreneur, who dropped out after Class 10, provides employment to 200 people and currently earns Rs 15 crore per year.
