Since the years that brought in social media, comedy has transformed in India. After observing on YouTube and Instagram how Western comedians rose to fame, Indian comedians saw an opportunity to emulate their styles to gain some notoriety, only adapting them to Indian culture and perspectives.
This has provided every opportunity for people to become huge celebrities overnight. Viewers online only care whether someone can make them laugh, not about connections, rules, or where they’re from. This is thanks to the rich variety of online self-publishing sites like Odds96 have democratized entertainment.
Today, we are going to take you through the evolution of Indian comedy.
The Pre-Social Media Era of Indian Stand-Up Comedy
Before social media revolutionized the entertainment landscape, standup comedy in India was a fledgling scene:
- unorganized
- under-recognized
- English-only
- confined to small, elite urban pockets in Delhi, Bangalore, and Mumbai.
The idea of making a living solely by telling jokes on stage was almost laughable itself. Comedy existed, sure, but not as an independent art form. It was woven into films, television sketches, and the like.
Humorists like Jonny Lever who did a film for free, Raju Srivastava, and others made their mark through family-friendly content or Bollywood films, often performing in roles rather than as themselves. Though these people were popular, it wasn’t personal and didn’t give them the full opportunity to express a pure brand.
Television shows were another avenue but they were formulaic and controlled by the sensibilities of the producers and sensors. The Great Indian Laughter Challenge propelled stand-up forward but even then the style was restricted and had to be “clean”. Political material was discouraged too.
The club scene and its limits
Comedians like Vir Das, Papa CJ, Sorabh Pant, and Ash Chandler started experimenting with the Western-style standup format in the biggest cities:
- holding a microphone;
- a spotlight on;
- audiences sitting in chairs;
- unfiltered monologue.
This brought a whole new flavor to humor based on observations, satire, and storytelling. Only English-speaking urbanites could understand them. Comedy clubs like the Blue Frog were breeding grounds but admission was high priced and few people got to see them anyway. There was no viral tweet or sharable reel. Only 50 to 100 people at most attended them and there was no recording or proper infrastructure.
Rise of Social Media and Digital Platforms
YouTube was the great equalizer. No platform had a bigger impact on standup. Around 2014-2016, comedians began uploading full sets, short bits, and crowd work clips directed to the platform. This changed everything. Now comedians who previously had cracked jokes to 50 people in a club could be seen by 5 million people online. One viral video could turn an open mic performer into a household name overnight.
Acts that gained explosion traction online included:
- Zakir Khan’s “Haq Se Single”;
- Abhishek Upmanyu’s rapid-fire observational takes;
- Kenny Sebastian’s relatable middle-class anecdotes;
- Biswa Kalyan Rath’s quirky delivery.
The “YouTube” special became a legitimate format in its own right. And unlike traditional media, YouTube didn’t impose restrictions on language, political content, or taboo subjects. They started telling jokes in:
- Hindi;
- Tamil;
- Punjabi;
- Malayalam;
- Bengali.
Shorts
Instagram’s short-form video format introduced a new kind of visibility. Reels, stories, and short clips often less than 60 seconds made comedy more digestible, shareable, and likely to go viral. Comedians adapted quickly, uploading clips of crowd interactions, punchy one-liners, relatable rants, and skits for mobile users. This not only helped carry people over to their longer YouTube videos – they helped them build personal brands.
Streaming specials
Parallel to the social media explosion, streaming platforms like Netflix and Disney+ Hotstar began commissioning full-length comedy specials. Shows like Kanan Gill’s Keep It Real and Neet Palta’s Almost Sanskari featured a variety of voices, themes, and performances.
People no longer had to go out and watch them but could sit at home and binge them. Streaming also encouraged experimentation that might not have been possible in traditional club spaces. And on YouTube, nobody could give a leg up for the wrong comedian who was less funny. The viewers themselves vote for the top performers with their views, subscriptions, shares, and donations.
New Faces and Voices in Indian Stand-Up Comedy
Today’s landscape is now rife with lots of comedic personalities across the social and geographical spectrum. Social media didn’t just amplify existing stars – it created fertile conditions for entirely new ones to emerge. Previously, the megacities had a monopoly on comedy stage time and audiences, as that’s where most of the festivals, production houses, and clubs were.
But anybody, whether they were in Ranchi, Surat, Guwahati, or New Delhi, could set up a camera.
These came in great varieties:
- Shubham Shandilya’s Hindi sketches and Praveen Kumar’s Tamil-English bilingual jokes both appeal to audiences that were long underserved by the metro-focused comedy circuits. The idea that you had to perform in English to catch on was quickly shattered.
- Samay Raina blends chess with standup.
- Anubhav Singh Bassi tells long-form stories about middle-class life.
On top of that, there is a broad online community for fans to directly engage through comments, DMs, and live sessions. Comedians can collaborate with each other across cities and genres, often meeting and performing together only after they’ve built rapport online.
This camaraderie aligned with shared struggles around censorship, trolling, or algorithmic suppression has turned India’s comedy scene into a tight-knit digital movement that’s less about competition and more about creative co-existence.
Voicing previously censored opinions
Comedians in India play an important role in voicing different opinions that plenty of people harbor but that you hardly hear. These are often based on region, gender, language, and caste. Women like Aishwarya Mohanraj and Spriya Joshi have carved out strong digital presences with humor that spoke directly to their lived experiences.
Self-made culture
Without the gatekeepers, now comedians are doing everything themselves. They write their material, film, edit the footage, and upload it all themselves.
They have a broad range of responsibilities to handle like managing their own:
- branding;
- merchandise;
- ticketing;
- community engagement.
This is all done using digital tools. Many of them do live streams and accept donations. Another thing they do is podcasts where they get to express their unfiltered thoughts at length and deepen their relationship with fans.
The Globalization of Indian Comedy
Social media is not limited to just India either of course. It’s been a platform connecting Indian humor to the world. What used to be a hyper-local scene rooted in Indian cultural references and linguistic nuances has increasingly found a place on global platforms and in international conversations. Perhaps the most visible face of this global rise is Vir Das, whose Netflix specials, especially Abroad Understanding and For India, received widespread international attention.
His now famous monologue Two Indias delivered in Washington DC went viral across the continents. Regardless of where people stood politically, his clips have proven that Indian comedians were now capable of influencing global discourse. Others have followed suit.
Reaching foreign audiences
A significant portion of Indian standup’s global traction comes from the Indian diaspora, a massive English-speaking audience hungry for content that reflects their cultural roots with a modern twist. But Indian comedy has been increasing comedians’ fame as they use universal themes like identity, modern relationships, generational conflicts, and social anxiety, regardless of the viewers’ background.
