Comedians tweet their way to laughter

It's short. It's crisp. It's funny. In an attempt to garner more followers, Indian comedians are using social media, especially Twitter, and laughing all the way to the bank. While comedians abroad have amassed mass following through Twitter, in India, they're discovering that this medium can make them celebrities and lead to a new genre of humour.

Sorabh Pant, who does about 150 shows across India and whose Twitter handle is @hankypanty says, "Indians are funny, funny people. The 15-40 age group of educated, urbane Indians is the best crowd on the planet. They understand puns and innuendoes and aren't over sensitive to sexual, religious or communal stereotypes."

Tanmay Bhat, does shows in bars and auditoriums, loves interacting with his Twitter audience. "Everybody is more aware of news, views and is generally more worldly wise than other people I have met," he says.

But it requires a certain amount of adroitness for these stand-up comedians, used as they are to doing shows, to convey humour in 140 characters. Those who tickle the funny bone on stage may just be dead bores on Twitter. Pant admits, "Initially, it was difficult to edit one's thoughts. But now, my tweets are telegrams sent out instantly." Bhat says he started tweeting in 2009 but gave up as he found it stupid and boring. "I came back to the medium in 2011. Since then, I do about 30 tweets a day," he says. It worked -- he has 40,000 followers.

Sapan Verma who does live shows for East India Comedy, a Mumbai-based company, says Twitter got him an all-India audience. "Almost 30% of my live audience is through it. They see me cracking jokes in this medium under the identity @sapanv and decide to check out my shows. This works better than putting an ad for my show," he says chuckling.

There is healthy competition among these comedians to be the first to tweet about a news story. The most viral tweet, says Pant, will have more than 200 RTs (retweets for the uninitiated) for stuff that happened 9.8 seconds back.

The subjects they twitter about are varied -- Bollywood, politics, Mumbai rains, Delhi traffic, technology, Modi.... Sapan tweets this about the spiraling prices of onions: "Onions have become so expensive that now your girlfriend will be happy if you go down on your knees and ask her out using an onion ring." Others use political satire. Rohan Joshi @mojorojo has some 42,000 followers and says this: "Parliament adjourned again. Seriously guys, just stay home and form a WhatsApp group. Much easier." Bhat tweets under @thetanmay: "One minute silence for the dude in the Maruti 800 with the Dhoom car reversing tone."

But it's not all work and no pay. Some have 'influencers' such as CEOs and film celebrities following them. Companies contact them to tweet about their brand and offer them Rs 1,000-2,000 per tweet. But they say their most evolved audience comes from Mumbai, Delhi, Bangalore and Pune. Most consciously avoid anything that's too sexist. Verma says, "There is a thin line between entertaining people and offending them."

As for the next big thing on social media, Pant predicts it will be Youtube. "Cross platforming is the word of the day," he says.

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