all i'm trying to say is to smile when
they least expect it when you are
enraged and you are angry in moments
like that
that tests your integrity when you land
and are going through customs and they
ask for your occupation make sure you
say trash can you effin caveman if you
can take something in be so enraged but
still produce an intellectual
intelligent and thoroughly thought out
response that my friend is true
character
back in 2013 lily singh was flying high
her simple but hilarious productions
documenting the various struggles of an
indian living abroad were being shared
all across brown circles
lily's combination of impersonations
commentary and criticisms of brown
culture felt like a nice refreshing
viewpoint for all of us immigrants
but after years of growing her following
to an impressive 14.9 million lily was
seemingly leaving it all behind for a
new life as a late night host her own
nbc late night show but why leave the
youtube bubble
while lilly saw an incredible rise in
popularity from 2012 onward by 2014 she
started to plateau
with her videos getting an average of
four to five million views but in 2018
she saw a major decline with her current
views as of 2020 averaging around 1.5
million lily saw that her position as a
top youtuber was slipping and she was
not happy
which she voiced across all of her
social media accounts
the truth is that the youtube landscape
was changing
with the algorithm promoting longer
commentary videos which resulted in
higher ad revenue for the platform
but lilly's content kind of stayed the
same
lily started off with representing a
then underrepresented culture indians
her early videos blew up because she was
finally talking about things that we
could relate to
yes i'm indian
and this is where lily played her
comedic talent is impersonation
and through her many characters lily
offered commentary on everything from
indian and white culture to girl and boy
culture
while she was often critical her
commentary felt reasonable as well as
relatable
and most importantly it was fair
she criticized men and women equally she
criticized brown and white culture
equally she both drew on differences and
commonalities
all while offering solid laughs and a
feeling of unity
lily was successfully carving out a
space for herself among the modern young
minority crowd
which as it turns out wasn't so minority
but while her audience was growing up
and starting to age out of the problems
that she was discussing on her channel
she continued to discuss those problems
on her channel
she was not growing along with us
the comedian eliza schlesinger is a
great example of age in your work
when she first became famous in her 20s
her comedy was centered around dating
and partying but as she entered her 30s
she started to address the next natural
stages of engagements in marriage making
her the consistent voice amongst her fan
base
meanwhile lily currently in her 30s is
actually aging her content down
now there's nothing wrong with trying to
appeal to a younger audience
but a consequence of that decision is
that your audience will erode when it
ages out
there is also the added issue that your
comedy feels inauthentic
since it's not necessarily in touch with
the kids in school today
lily captured the zeitgeist of the child
of an immigrant growing up in western
culture
struggling to maintain dual identities
but with the rise of globalization
indian parents are less and less likely
to look like this
and more likely to look like this
in recent years as lily doubled down on
her indian parents skits the criticism
of perpetuating stereotypes has become
quite loud and now she's not only lost
the crowd that first supported her but
any chance of getting the support of the
teens to early 20s minorities
thus lily embarked on a new journey
so long youtube
hello late night tv
before we can talk about the show though
we need to talk about lily and her
philosophy on success
now lily is a big believer in three
pillars of success
number one hustle
number two manifestation
number three positivity
now there is no denying that lily works
really hard
it's especially clear in her vlogs where
she shows a day in her life while she's
taping the show and it's honestly
exhausting just watching it
it's also amazing that she stays
positive the entire time no matter how
difficult the days seem
it's hard enough to get 14.9 million
subscribers on youtube but lily has also
written a book and landed a late night
show
and she attributes all of this to the
power of manifestation
which she enables through building
vision boards
and if you look at her vision boards
it's clear that she's incredibly
ambitious
but it's her ambition that ends up being
the iceberg that sinks the show okay
let's talk about the show
the show is
not good
the jokes aren't funny i had dog themed
movie posters like jurassic park
kill ball the interviews are not
interesting
and most importantly her persona is not
likable considering that there are 100
people working on the show it was a
little surprising that not even a single
joke could elicit a sincere chuckle
instead the editors keep amping up the
audience manic fake laughter with each
new episode
now why does the material suck
during one of her more recent vlogs lily
addresses the challenges facing the show
especially the intense recording
schedule
due to a limited budget and her busy
schedule they had to shoot 96 episodes
in three months
yites
this is a very difficult thing to pull
off and i think it's lily's tenacity
that pushed her to say yes to such a
schedule but in the process she actually
made it damn near impossible to succeed
now there's a reason why night show
hosts shoot daily
first of all they're commenting on the
current events and it's easier to
preserve quality when you space out the
work lily on the other hand makes the
choice not to discuss anything topical
and honestly how could you if you're
pre-recording an entire season's worth
in three months this in particular made
it really hard to write fresh material
and it's so clear from her vlogs that
she's so overwhelmed and her team is so
overwhelmed and the material is being
constantly rewritten where she's often
walking into tapings with no idea what
she's going to say they're all working
morning to night every day trying to
pull enough material together to shoot
two or even three shows in one night
and there seems to be this manic level
of terror surging through lily while
she's going from commitment to
commitment during the day
when lily shares the stresses of this
experience i almost get the feeling that
she's angling for empathy
but make no mistake
all of this was a choice
recording several episodes a day was a
choice
trying to shove an entire year's worth
of work into a couple of weeks was a
choice
and not making this her only focus her
only passion was a choice
and as a result she robbed herself and
the team of any opportunity to iterate
on their work to see what's going to
work for her as a comedian
there is this fallacy that if you're
busy you're crushing it
if you don't have time to eat lunch or
to catch some time to breathe then you
are successful
but producing good work takes
introspection
it takes time
patience
and trial and error
it takes a very positive relationship
with criticism
and this brings us to the next reason
why the show is incredibly bad
lily singh can't handle
criticism i think a natural consequence
of fame
is that you're going to start buying
your own hype
drinking your own kool-aid and cutting
out the negativity of so-called haters
and creating a universe where you're
only surrounded by positivity means
you're not going to be able to iterate
or grow
when lily was starting out on youtube
she came to the platform like any new
creator would
with open ears and willingness to
experiment
she tried a couple of different things
before finding the format that worked
for her
but with the show she has given herself
no room to do this
despite entering a new career a new
medium and a new time slot
all while trying to build an entirely
new audience
since her young youtube audience isn't
exactly up at 1am
i think lily is aware of everything that
is wrong with her show
and it shows in her level of discomfort
in the stand-up style monologues
a medium she knows nothing about
and lily overcompensates for the weak
material
by hamming up the sounds faces pelvic
thrusts and other bodily movements
not to mention the constant request for
noise from the audience
for support for positivity
this combined with the general tone of
the show centering around her bragging
about her success makes her incredibly
cringy to watch
honestly it's the bragging that really
surprised me
since behind the scenes on her vlogs and
on our youtube channel lily has always
maintained an ultimate humility
but on stage she turns into kanye west
meets mr bean
and i suspect it's because of her
discomfort
lily knows that she's good in the
youtube bubble
that she can connect with her audience
and provide consistent content
but in front of the cameras and a live
studio audience with subpar material a
large team she doesn't know how to
manage
lilly turns herself into the class clown
just to get through the night
but there's one more thing
lily has a very strange relationship
with her fame and success
she's proud of it and doesn't feel like
luck had much to do with it
and does her best to play down her
desire for more fame more money
when she's visualizing and manifesting
her ambitions she attaches a different
reason to it
saying that her fame is not about her
it's about her duty to achieve success
for the sake of her checked boxes for
the sake of minority representation
and i think this comes from a little bit
of guilt
or desire to apologize for her success
for her large house and affluent
lifestyle
lily does this by redirecting her
privilege towards fighting for causes
like girl love minority representation
and minority success
but it's this call to arms that has
locked her out of her comedic strengths
which are impersonations and commentary
the very strengths that brought her
success and fame
i mean lily could hardly be from
minority representation and then play an
exaggerated antiquated version of her
mom and not get strong backlash
she couldn't be for girl love and then
criticize certain female behavior like
she has in the past
so that meant a little late with lily
singh would have safe scripts where
minorities are positively represented
and all the humor is at the cost of
white men
and that's what every joke is about
this means the audience is either being
pandered to or being alienated
lily unfortunately has painted herself
into a corner
it seems she's at a point that any
material she's experimenting with is
either falling flat or causing a twitter
storm
her most recent entry into her
discography was a dance hall number
where she mimics the caribbean accent to
sing a song that basically tells women
that they're perfect in every way
when i watched it it made me think back
to a song of lily's that i actually
liked
le was released back in 2014 and it was
a collaboration between her and her
friend humbled the poet
and it's actually a good song
it's funny silly and above all humble
that's because lily calls out her own
and other people's bs
but somehow she traded this authenticity
for consistent pandering
thinking that it will pull in a larger
audience but
instead it's only narrowed it
and with so many youtubers making
critical videos about her she seems to
have dug in her heels even more
because either you're with her
with women with minorities with the
lgbtq community
or you're none of those things i'm like
why y'all so fragile the reason i
decided to make this video was when i
was watching lily's vlogs i started to
wonder if she was actually happy
while her show is filming she seems
utterly overwhelmed anxious frustrated
and sometimes lost
clocking in long long hours where she
arrives late to a meeting just so that
she can have a minute to herself
in contrast just a few months earlier
when her main focus was her youtube
channel she seemed far more content
happy and fulfilled by her work
i think the problem with maintaining the
facade of success of a hashtag hustle
positivity life
is that there is no room for a breath
for reasonable criticism for a room of
people that disagree with you and with
each other for the sake of the quality
of the work
i think on a show with an intense
deadline and intense schedule there's no
room to disagree
there is only the fervor to get the
boxes checked and the talent in front of
the camera
it seems like lily realizes that the
shoot schedule was very challenging
but i also hope that she can be honest
with herself for why the content is just
not working
without thinking that she's breaking her
tenants of positivity and good vibes
only
but with so many eyes on her and so many
critics it's hard to admit that you're
struggling
that you're failing
because it can feel like you're giving
up giving in
or losing
and there's nothing scarier than public
failure and maybe the hardest thing to
admit is that you're not happy with your
new path
because it has to work
and this is how fame can ultimately
become the biggest trap i don't know how
to gauge success i do shows and i'm like
that felt really good to me like is nbc
happy is the crew happy are people on
youtube gonna like this is this a
success is this doing well and i don't
know how to gauge it
[Music]
you