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HT Brunch Cover Story: Selfie-made & simply famous!
With millions of followers and hundreds of fan clubs, Faisal Shaikh, 25, and Sameeksha Sud, 26, are poster-bearers of the self-created stardom that only social media can accord
He’s a boy who started making Dubsmash videos while working as a salesperson in Bandra’s Linking Road. She’s a Delhiite who bought a ticket to the City of Dreams for an acting career. Today, 25-year-old Faisal Shaikh, aka mr_faisu_07, has 16.2 million followers on Instagram, his own merchandise and a higher engagement than Salman Khan’s. And 26-year-old Sameeksha Sud, aka sameeksha.sud_, has used Instagram to display her dance skills and has 5.9 million loyal fans, besides being featured in the list of top 10 global TikTokers and had 25 million followers on the platform before it was banned in India.
Bandra boy & the city of dreams
For three-and-a-half years, Faisal worked as a salesperson in Mumbai’s famous shopping spot, Linking Road, from 11 am to 9-10 pm, after attending classes at Rizvi College of Arts, Science and Commerce at 6.30 am. He also hit the gym at night! At 20, owing to his family’s financial situation, he was torn between working and studying, realising he couldn’t do both.
“I went to the shop and broke down. That’s the age when you start thinking about life and I was clueless. I wanted to complete my graduation. But woh time hai and aaj ka time hai – graduation bhi ho gaya and itna sab kuch haasil bhi ho gaya,” he says, looking up gratefully at the sky after finishing the HT Brunch cover shoot.
Delhi girl Sameeksha’s story is a tad different. A mass communication student who realised she had a knack for acting, she landed in Mumbai, hoping it would be easy to crack the industry. “But it’s just luck. I struggled to get roles so I accepted everything that came my way,” says the content creator who says she’s still an actor first.
Doing typical roles on TV shows did not stop her from uploading videos on Instagram in 2013, followed by TikTok, YouTube, etc. “I did it for fun because back then there was no concept of social media being a mainstream career option. People used to make fun of me saying, ‘what is she even doing’. Now the same people ask me how they can improve their social media engagement. So I feel like I’ve achieved a little something,” Sameeksha says with a twinkle in her eye.
Faisal made his social media debut with a bit of acting on Dubsmash and posted it on Facebook. He got his first taste of fame when people in college started recognising him as ‘the guy who makes Dubsmash videos’.
“I always thought that only people I saw on the big screen were famous enough to have fans. But now I understand fandom is a deep world in itself,” he says. He’s still a bit lost in this world he admits, scrolling through the comments on his posts.
The benefits of trolls
Faisal got on the Musical.ly app in college, ensuring his content remained “clean” and family-friendly. “But people, including my family, were telling me there’s no career in this,” he says.
It was when he was trolled that he gained enough confidence to know he was doing the right thing. Faisal laughs as he reminisces, “I put up a dance video on Musical.ly, wearing a pair of white jeans and it looked like my zip was open. But the next day I had 70k likes!”
Encouraged, he joined Instagram, but instead got a lot of pages making memes out of his content. “I got scared and went off social media for two days,” he says. On the third day, his followers had gone from 20k to 250k. “Haters wouldn’t follow, but obviously my post had reached other people who liked what I was doing. That was the day I decided I’d turn the negative into positive by focusing on my work,” he reveals.
That #influencerlife
Sameeksha went viral when she gave in to her mom’s request to dance to Madhuri Dixit’s Humko Aajkal Hain Intejaar. The next morning, she was bombarded with people copying it and boys doing duets with it. “You should always listen to your mom,” laughs Sameeksha, who believes the first rule in creating content is to consume content. “You see 100 things, 10 are trending, and there are five things you actually want to do. Do those instead of following a trend. Pick what kind of content is apt for your audience. Mine enjoys cutesy videos and bloopers!” she reveals.
Faisal, meanwhile, focuses on uploading at least 14 videos every day. “I had just one vision – that I appear on everyone’s feed,” says the creator, who tries to reply to as many of the 15k comments he gets per day. Sameeksha finds Instagram live sessions once a week the best way to connect with the “fan fam”, besides having a group with her fan pages. And though she’s been recognised in public while doing TV shows, it has increased by leaps and bounds after she embraced the influencer life. So much so that a running family joke is that they can’t go anywhere with Sameeksha. “But this is the case with most influencers today,” she explains.
Faisal is still getting used to being recognised on the streets. “I have thoughts like, ‘Ki yaar, am I this capable now that people recognise me?’ And then it hits me. It feels good as I come from nowhere. And people have recognised my hard work and effort. It’s been a struggle but it’s prepared me for what comes ahead mentally,” smiles Faisal, who takes the five minutes he gets between shots to do a little dance for his IG feed!
Celebrity status
So do they feel like celebs who have ‘made it’?
“I don’t feel like a celeb. I still do jhaadu-poncha, clean utensils, and go vegetable shopping at home with my family. Sometimes fans start crying when they meet me, but I’m just another person! See, long-lasting fame is difficult to achieve, and not many can do it either. Quick fame is accessible thanks to Instagram and other social media which act as platforms for niche talent – it gives an opportunity for talent to get spotted. It’s not the same kind of fame as Bollywood stars and cricketers though – that’s still got miles to go even though collaborations are happening,” says Sameeksha.
Faisal grins as he confesses, “My engagement may be more than Salman Khan’s, but if I see him, I will run to meet him. I think fame only makes sense if you are using it to do something good – bring about good influence. Because there are people who only do things for image. And a common man can’t become famous unless he is doing something substantial.”
So what’s next – a luxury car or house? “I have my own car now, which feels so good! I’m more of a saver, who likes investing in things. I’ll buy a house instead of an expensive car,” says Sameeksha.
“Even if I do buy one, I won’t have space to park it! I have a bike now and I don’t plan to move from Bandra East,” says Faisal. “But yeah, I want to go back to Linking Road to that place where I worked and do the same thing for a day, but with my own line.”
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From HT Brunch, March 28, 2021
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