“Did you watch Baked?”, “Did you complete The Girl in the City series?”, “Oh my God, The Tripling is so amazing”. This is the age of web series and the concept is pretty new to India because it all kick-started in 2015 but we are all abreast of it. Web series are a relief for the millennials from the boring, typical and content-less Indian TV shows. In fact, not just youngsters, middle-aged people like mine and your parents are entering and traversing the era of watching shows on YouTube and other media platforms.
With the advancement of technology and availability of smartphones with everybody today, these web series are our escape with their varied and relatable content. We, the millennials, cannot while away time sitting in front of our TV’s waiting for our shows to begin every night at 8 p.m. or that movie to air at 9 p.m. because we are busy chasing our dreams, conquering the world, breaking stereotypes, and having the best time of our lives so we entertain ourselves with these thought-provoking series readily available online. They easily fit into our busy schedules because an episode doesn’t last for more than 20 minutes.
We connect with the shows because the characters are funnily clumsy (just like us), real, and flawed. Web series like Man’s World and Ladies’ Room shatter stereotypes, and All About Article 377 brings issues of transgender people to the limelight. Issues like sex are no longer relegated to the fringes with Sex Chat with Pappu and Papa. The millennials are woke in the truest sense with the issues of the world and don’t shy away from writing about them.
Raabiya, a student of Shaheed Bhagat Singh College contributes, “I no longer like to watch movies now and that is because of web series. It’s a movie but with episodes, so it doesn’t feel like a chore. Moreover, since web series are being produced by the new generation, current issues are often taken into account. Interestingly, I realised that I was transgender while watching a web series. While watching All the Women, I somehow realised that that’s where I want to be.” Shows like Permanent Roommates, The Tripling, Pitchers, Haq Se, The Trip, Little Things, Rise, and Official CEO Giri empower the audience in certain ways along with the comical elements. Muskan Sethi, a student of Jesus and Mary College comments, “I feel that these series are breaking the rut that the Indian soaps have created, the way they break away from the patriarchal mindsets and bring a fresh take on the 21st century lifestyles.”
The TRP ratings have immensely dropped with the advent of web series and their popularity has multiplied to the extent that Bollywood celebrities like Irrfan Kan, Naseerudin Shah, Priyanka Chopra, and Said Ali Khan wish to be associated with this revolution and bring more content with them. Companies like TVF, Y Films, Arre, and ALT Balaji are great platforms of opportunities for creative talents. These organisations have provided jobs to numerous upcoming artists and who are now famous even without their ‘big breaks’ in Bollywood.
These web series have come to our rescue when Indian television shows and Bollywood have disappointed their audiences and there is still a lot of scope for exploration, creative scripts, and ideas that need to see the light.
Feature Image Credits: The Yellow Sparrow
Prachi Mehra
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