I feel very ‘me’ when the camera is on me: Agasthya Shah

Dominating the social media space with his wit, Comedian Agasthya Shah recently joined NewsX for a fun and candid chat as part of NewsX Influencer A-List. In the exclusive conversation, Agasthya opened up about his journey so far, his first reel, social media and much more. Read excerpts:

Starting with talking about the small break he took for about a year in between after starting off on your social media journey, Agasthya said, “I took a break because of my 12th board exams. I am still in university. Instagram reels played a huge part because I got a lot of free time because of the quarantine and the lockdown. Instagram reels really helped me boost it. I think what changed was one reel, which I made on my mom giving me rice instead of pizza. That really blew up and got around 4 ½ or 5 million views and ½ a million likes. I think that’s what really changed the game for me.”

Telling us more about the pizza reel, Agasthya shared, “I got the idea from a real life incident that happened just the day before. My mom promised me I could order dominos pizza and then she gave me khichdi because of some reason. This can be very relatable. It must have happened to everybody. I thought let’s make a video on this. I made it in my room only, just on a regular day and it ended up blowing up, getting like 4 or 5 million views and half a million likes and that was like a much-much bigger reel.”

Expressing his thoughts on social media and how it makes him feel, Agasthya said, “I just feel very me when the camera is on me even when the camera is not on me. I feel the energy a creator has, the audience can sense . That is why, I feel like I need to bring my energy to my audience. Ultimately my goal is to make their day, to make them happy when they see my videos and energy really plays a huge role in that for me. I just push whatever I have when I am shooting to get the most entertaining and best content I can.”

When asked what has changed since he has become a social media influencer, Agasthya responded, “I wouldn’t really not call myself an influencer. In my mind, I’m really just like a boy making videos he loves, even when I didn’t have the followers or anything like that but, things have definitely changed. I have so many people appreciating my content, which really feels good. I really take time to reply to every person, how many ever DMs I can, because the messages encourage me. They make me feel so good that my content is actually helping so many people and making so many people happy, which was the goal behind me making my content. It is to provide a stress buster and a kind of a relief for Gen Z and college students like myself. That is the goal and I’m happy that it’s being accomplished.”