The wink went viral, and the rest is history. Malayalam actress Priya Prakash Varrier gained instant fame when her 30-second wink-workout clip from the song 'Manikya Malaraya Poovi' began trending. Within days, she became the third celebrity around the world to garner more than 600k followers on Instagram in a day. The two other celebrities with the same claim to fame are reality TV star Kylie Jenner and footballer legend Cristiano Ronaldo, who gathered 806k and 650k followers, respectively, in 24 hours. There is not much stopping Priya now as India's own social media celeb has 4.5 million Instagram followers, overtaking owner Mark Zuckerberg's 4 million followers. "The main reason behind Priya Varrier becoming viral over social media is Indian internet stars like AIB, Zakir Khan picking up the content and spinning memes around it," explains Sushant Yattam, Head of Marketing & Audience Development at Qyuki Digital Media.
He sees the euphoria around Varrier's wink similar to 2012's Kolaveri Di song by Tamil actor Dhanush. "You see Dhanush has nicely leveraged his internet fame and got in-roads into Bollywood," he says, and adds that Varrier should do the same. "Priya has to now focus on engaging with her new audience." Before Priya, there was Sheril Kadavan who stole the limelight after her dance for the Malayalam song Jimikki Kammal went viral. Comparing the two, Karthik Srinivasan, National Lead, Social@Ogilvy, Ogilvy India says, "Both of them went through the same ascent in terms of viral fame, though Priya used her limited viral popularity smartly given that she is an actress (unlike Sheril who was just a teacher in the college for which she danced in)." What makes simple things like Sheril's dance or Priya's wink go viral is it cuts across language barriers and is easily shareable. But will Priya be around for the long haul or will she prove to be a, well, one-wink wonder? "Whether she is a one-song wonder or not depends on whether she is a one-film wonder or not, considering the film hasn't released yet! But she has been smart to mint her limited initial popularity to build her social media base and also utilize that increasing base with brand promotions (for Pringles and OnePlus 5T, to start with). That's smart, striking-it-when-it-is-hot thinking. She'd need to give people more reasons to hold on to her personality, beyond the wink, to be able to sustain the interest around her," opines Srinivasan. Priya is already promoting an international mobile brand and running a contest on her Instagram page. The video uploaded on February 20 has garnered 1,821,855 views - with that number growing in the blink of an eye. Yattam shares that opinion. "With the age of internet influencers, she is here for the long haul though her acting/work will speak for her sustainability in the industry." She could well be the GenX social media influencer for the most desired TG by all brands - the youth. Is it easy to make it big in today's digital landscape with the right moves? Hardly, says Srinivasan quickly. "First, the 'right moves' is equal to filmmakers assuming 'hit formula'. Second, if it was a formula, then a lot more people would make it big, but the internet is littered with more failures than successes simply because we're living in an overdose of content - more content than what we can meaningfully consume. Very few things bubble up to the top of the viral pile. And sustaining the hype depends entirely on the individuals' ability to sustain interest in them. The internet has reduced the bar for what consists 'great' - now, even a cute wink is 'great' enough for viral fame, but even the viral spread has a reduced bar, of just 3-4 days since it's free to outrage and share." - anita@khaleejtimes.com FOLLOWERS: A BIRD'S EYE VIEW Facebook: 332,812 Instagram: 4.5M Twitter: 16.2k YouTube views of 'Manikya Malaria Poovi' song: 37M
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