Essay : I don’t support all Brown Influencers

Please don’t mistake this essay of me critiquing the South Asian creative sphere as me hating on the people who do it. There are some incredible creatives in this area and most of the people I have met, whether I have liked their content or not, are fantastic people. I’m also speaking specifically on South Asian-American female/nonbinary/femme-presenting influencers in this essay. 

* are edits!

INTRO 

I’ve had this conversation several times in the past two years, I don’t think I can really escape it. But this most recent time came as I was scrolling through Instagram - a last resort as all my other social media apps have become dry. I’ve made it a point to break the habit of scrolling through Instagram. A few years ago when I stayed in Los Angeles for a semester, I threw myself into the South Asian (SA) creative fold. I attended every dance class, film festival, and befriended as many Desi content creators as I could meet. It was inspiring seeing a lot of people make moves in an industry that historically never supported them. So now my feed is flooded with these people and all the content they’ve been making for the past two years. A lot of them have blown up since I first met them, but I can’t say I enjoy their content anymore. It’s because I don’t believe them. It’s like a set. The decoration is all there but once you knock it down, it’s hollow. 

I can understand where the fascination and admiration comes from. I have felt it myself. To see brown influencers making it on social media and in Hollywood. How it feels to be a part of something where you feel like you belong. Also to be a part of something that feels like it might blow up soon and you could be a founding member of that. The clout, the opportunities… it feels great.

Today, I was scrolling through my IG stories when I came on a video by @henna_speaks. She was commenting on a video about Allure’s article on influencer Seerat Saini about how she’s decolonizing desi beauty (highly recommend you check out the video). I’ve met Seerat before and I can say she is a sweet person and I have a lot of respect for her. I do agree with @henna_speaks in that Seerat’s content doesn’t decolonize Desi beauty. And that’s fine, she shouldn’t have to. So why was her article given that specific headline and why the outrage?

Before I start, I wanted to clarify that this essay is not a response to that TikTok video or Seerat. There are several influencers that I know or have followed for a while who I feel are perpetuating a fake brand of what it means to be SA that is pigeonholing other SA influencers and driving away audiences from those who don’t fit that mold. Because of how persuasive social media is and how addicting going viral is, it is incredibly easy to spread redactive content to a community of people. It’s also so easy to join in because the blueprint of how to go viral and what you need to do to fit in is right there. So a lot of people end up compromising their own identities to try and play the game. 

IDENTITY

Let me start with this. 

There is no such thing as a South Asian/Desi “community”. 

Yes, this is the term that we use to describe ourselves because we all come from the South Asian subcontinent. But what exactly do we have in common? We are not a monolith in culture or society. Not even close. I tried coming up with a list of things that we ALL have in common. ALL meaning all South Asian people and diaspora from India, Pakistan, Nepal, Bhutan, Sri Lanka, Afghanistan, and the Maldives? Not much. We have different food, clothes, skin color, language, religion, pop culture references, different dance styles. For SA-Americans, our major commonality is that we grew up American. 

I grew up around a lot of SA people. All of my best childhood friends are South Asian. I went to school with them, Balavihar with them and the temple with them regularly. In every aspect of my life, no matter how good these friendships were there was always an element of competition that pushed its way into our lives. Most of that came from our parents. We were raised to be better than our friend, our cousin, even our neighbor. To be the most successful. And to reach those goals I know a lot of people who cut a lot of corners to get where they are. Some of those people are extremely successful today but they were not well liked or respected and it definitely caused a lot of tension. However, in the end, they got where they needed to be. 

This idea of competition followed me anytime I was around brown people. It was noticeable when I did speech and debate in high school. All the Black competitors would greet each other and go out of their way to make friends with each other regardless of whether they were in competition or not. Not a single SA did the same. We were viewed as someone to beat, which always led to some kind of drama and a LOT of fakeness. Coming into the LA creative scene, this was the same. People wouldn’t speak to you unless you had the same level of clout and the minute you stopped following them blindly, you would be iced out. The sense of competition to be the first South Asian who won an award or the first one to have a brand deal was very much in the air even if nobody spoke about it publicly. Organizations that were meant to boost SA creatives quickly found a way to become exclusive within themselves. And a lot of the creatives involved with them, cut those same corners in order to blow up as quickly as they did. Because if you can immediately relate to your audience, the visibility and success are not far behind. And what better way to blow up than to pick the most easily digestible content : Bollywood snippets, Desi lenghas and jewelry, Bollywood dance styles to make that happen. 

Those small similarities dominated the SA content creative world. Because these are things that are tangible, it was easy to have them be the basis of our social media identity. It was funny at first, seeing memes about elachi, arranged marriages, “bicultural” identities, the million iterations of the same K3G scene posted on Subtle Curry Traits. Very relatable things that we felt could tie us together. I admit I enjoyed it. 

People always want to criticize the SA’s that have actually made it big (notice how it’s always the women) : Lilly Singh, Priyanka Chopra, Mindy Kaling. Now that these women are at a higher status in their careers they have the ability to actually create content that would represent other SA’s. A lot of it is great (a lot of the Bollywood movies y’all love have your fave in them) and some not so great as with anything, but the reaction from us is always the same. “Why are they so cringe”, “this isn’t realistic”, “this isn’t the representation we need or deserve”. But what exactly are we looking for and how are we doing it differently? 

There’s a video that has been circulating on Twitter the past few days showing several OG’s of Vogue and Ballroom. [link] All of these transwomen set the standard and formed the culture around what is now modern Ballroom. The one thing I see with SA influencers is that everyone wants to skip to the part where they get recognition. Everyone wants fame and fortune but nobody wants to put in the work. Communities spend years developing artistry and thereby developing a culture that is exciting to watch and represents a variety of different people. Ballroom is just one example, take a look at the history of Reggaeton, Afrobeats, Hip Hop. Most of these people spent decades underground doing the work and honing their artistry and only now have managed to gain social prominence. SA’s are not at a stage in which we can demand recognition especially if we haven’t put in the work to sincerely create and showcase our own artistry. 

In addition to that there’s a huge amount of ego in this industry. Myself and a good amount of my friends have worked with a lot of influencers who once they blow up act like they’ve never seen you in their life. Some of them can still be small creators and that’s the most shocking thing. A lot of them expect to be worshiped. That’s one of the reasons why I don’t believe a lot of SA creators because while most of them say they are here to create and share their art, is that really the case? Or is it an attempt to reap the benefits of what it means to be an influencer. Is it a way to get the brand deals, have some power, feel established that you’ve dominated in a field that most Desi parents wouldn’t have approved of and most of your peers couldn’t succeed in? Is it something to lord over people with? Is it to be looked at and admired? Success overrides everything, right? If you are successful in this, the money, the fame, the clout all comes rushing in and it probably feels really good to have those brownie points. 

The influencer space has gotten so oversaturated with people mimicking influencers like Lilly and JusReign but not quite to the same caliber and nobody else coming up with another way to relate to each other other than making fun of our parents. For some reason, the content creation industry is the only one in which SA’s don’t hold the participants to a high standard. Maybe it’s because a lot of SA’s so desperately want representation that they are willing to forgo the quality of the work. These generalizations have become an actual identity. It is no longer just a skit. It has become unironically performative and actually reinforced a lot of stereotypes around SA’s. Because a lot of the content revolves around North Indians it’s pretty normal to feel excluded because you haven’t grown up around that or if you don’t feel like you want to participate. 

I didn’t grow up watching Bollywood movies. I also don’t speak Hindi. I’ve spoken to a lot of South Indians and Sri Lankans about how Bollywood makes a mockery of us or doesn’t even include us. Because of that, the racism towards other groups becomes more prominent. I can’t tell you the number of derogatory comments that were made in the Desi Dance Network about South Indians/Sri Lankans, queer people, Muslim people, and in general the lack of inclusion for anyone who didn’t fit the mold. Also less than half of the Indian population in India actually speaks Hindi so yes Bollywood movies/skits are fun to watch but how are we going to have something that less than half of Indian people let alone other SA groups really understand/relate to be a part of the basis of a cultural community? 

In addition to that, how are we going to have primarily light-skinned, primarily North Indian, primarily Hindu, primarily rich, primarily Hindi speaking individuals, primarily upper-caste* ALSO primarily NRI’s (Non Resident Indians) influencing several subcontinents of people that could not be more different? What exactly is being influenced?

It’s also interesting how primarily Indian influencers use the term Desi. I’ve been seeing a lot of people say that they no longer want to associate themselves under the umbrella of Desi/South Asian and reclaim more specific identifiers such as Bengali, Bangla, or Pakistani. Essentially, because we haven’t been through one cohesive struggle together or because we don’t have one BIG similarity with each other we really can’t relate to each other in that way. We’ve forced ourselves to create a unified identity. It’s so performative. Maybe because we see the Black community or the Latin community come together and wonder, why not us? Maybe because we aren’t meant to be that way? 

We need to stop pretending. 

DECOLONIZATION =/= ACTIVISM

The first time I heard the term “decolonization”, I was on Simran Randhawa’s Instagram back in 2013. I’m sure it’s been around far longer than that. It made sense to me then. Someone choosing to incorporate traditional clothing and jewelry into their everyday routine. Someone going against what seems trendy and cute and embracing parts of the culture that they had been shamed into hiding. I know that back then I would have definitely been made fun of by my friends for wearing a dupatta with jeans. It was a “fobby” thing to do. I really admired Simran and wanted to find a way to incorporate bicultural style into my own life and start to “decolonize my mind”. The big naaths, bindis, jewelry, henna, dupattas, anklets, I wanted all of it. It felt like it was the beginning of something new.

The names of these items specifically also were not ones that I grew up using, but I did once I started to adopt my identity back. Why is that? To force relatability. 

That’s not really applicable anymore. It feels like everyone wants to be at the front of that movement, but that moment has long gone. We’re seeing that kind of bicultural fashion in major fashion magazines now, and while we can always talk about wanting to see more of it, that doesn’t mean that it hasn’t existed for a good while now. It’s interesting to note that a lot of SA influencers still use the term decolonizing their mentality, wardrobe etc. What does that really mean, when the stereotypes reinforced by the content we create have practically recolonized us to believe that we need to dress this way and act this way in order to be taken seriously as an SA creator. We’re pandering to those who don’t understand our culture or who we are by making our content digestible. We’re cool and different, meanwhile we’re making skits talking like Apu from the Simpsons. When you post pictures of yourself as a child commenting on your dark skin, thick eyebrows or mustache, and unshaved arms and say how glad you are that you’ve “glowed up” you haven’t decolonized a damn thing. 

You want to know someone who is actively challenging these ideas? Harmaan Kaur, the British Sikh model who has been rocking a full beard for years. She’s not doing much, just her existence and her stance actively challenges the notion of what beauty is closer than anything else that I can think of. It shouldn’t be said that you’re decolonizing something, it should be seen because it’s who you are.  

Even then I don’t believe there is any way to decolonize anything completely. We live in the United States, one of the biggest colonizer countries ever. In fact to those who actually live in the South Asian subcontinent, we probably look like the biggest fools talking about decolonizing ourselves. 

This term hasn’t become popular for the right reasons. After the past two years, a lot of brands have definitely found a new angle to focus a lot of their content on : activism. “Decolonization” is another buzzword to add to their collection of articles to show people that they care about social causes. People of color reclaiming things that belong to them? Perfect. It’s guaranteed to be talked about, what I’m doing right now is a byproduct of that. A lot of influencers know this. People don’t want to be canceled and especially after all the social movements of the past few years, everyone wants to stay ahead of the curve. So involving the discussion of “decolonization” in your content is an easy way to show that you care. It’s also easy because not a lot of people can question you especially if they have no idea what it means. And because of that, it opens up a whole new audience of people who might not have related to your content before. If a beauty influencer did a normal eyeliner routine, it’s crickets. But if that same influencer did an eyeliner routine with kohl they made from ash that came straight from the base of the Himalayan mountains, you’re introducing a whole new conversation on sustainability, inclusivity, and reclaiming your identity. And brands will cough up big $$$ for that story. Actually, I would say majority of the blame falls on the brand. If a big name brand approaches you as a creator with under a million followers and offers you a full page cover claiming you to be at the forefront of a specific social issue, would you really turn that down? It would only make you look good and it would boost your numbers, so what’s a little criticism for all the pros? Is it the brand that’s pinning these activist headlines to the creator? Or are you as a creator tapping into activism to grab attention from these brands? Any way you spin it, it’s an issue. The fact that these are real world issues and shouldn’t be used as an attention grabber and certainly not to line peoples pockets. 

Stop looking at activism as a market.

I really dislike calling people activists. If you’re an activist you gotta live and die by what you believe in. It’s not changeable and it’s most definitely not for sale. And it’s also not for everyone. You can stand up for something because it’s the right thing to do. Don’t do it for a check and then be surprised when people get upset at you. Also I have yet to see a lot of these people act the way they do online in real life. So who exactly are they performing for? Their fellow influencers and the brands that pay them. 

Claiming decolonization and then showing off a purse you bought on Shein doesn’t decolonize anything. Neither does wearing a bridal lengha to film a TikTok at a Rite Aid. It’s the sign of immense wealth and carelessness and that inaccessibility gives people a remarkable kind of fame and a huge platform. I tried tapping into it myself. It felt cheap and disingenuous because I was doing it just to do it.  

There are specific influencers that are incredible at incorporating this into their art. Hamel Patel is one. Mira Patel another. Sruti Jayadevan curates gorgeous photoshoots and videos that showcase the beauty of being Malayali. Being Malayali, I’ve been inspired by her since I was in high school. Biddy has a unique lens on what it means to be a third-culture person and her art accurately reflects that. Rowi Singh can create insane eyeliner looks and pair them with jewelry in a way that looks cool, not just for show. Milan Mathew, Shawtycin, Aureareadykids all fantastic at creating Desi fusion looks without pushing a false brown narrative on you. Also let me remind you, none of these creators bash you over the head with the fact that they’re desi in any of their content. They’re intentional about it, not trying to fit in but trying to share a piece of themselves with other people. There is an incredible amount of talent that goes behind curating content the way these people do. THAT feels genuine. 

The difference between a majority of these influencers and the best ones are that the best ones treat their content like they’re creating art. It’s not easily replicated, it takes immense skill and patience, and a lot of the time if you have to be born with the talent to do it. Isha Punja (Hut Mentality) specializes in curating sustainable fashion pieces from craftsmen in India, Niha Elety and Aditi Mayer collect sustainable clothing/items and frequently speak out about how to become more sustainable in your own life. Natasha Thasan knows her way around a sari like you wouldn’t believe. All of this takes time and research spent learning about something. It’s not something you can just Google and throw on a TikTok and keep it pushing.

LEARNING

I think my biggest issue with a lot of South Asian creatives is that they don’t want to put in the work to LEARN. 

I want to bring back my use of the term “cutting corners''. There are a variety of places where I see this happening in the SA content creation industry. I have seen a lot of influencers making content on Ayurvedic practices, yoga, breathing techniques, etc. While yes these practices do come from South Asia that does not mean that every SA is qualified to spread information about it. A lot of these practices are tied to religion and while you can separate the two (and I do encourage this if you’re not of that religion), you have to learn where that specific practice came from in its truest sense before you do that. You can’t just make a video on Ayurvedic practices to help hair growth or help with cramps if you really don’t know what you’re talking about. Would you teach a class in anything else if you hadn’t taken classes/training yourself? There are people that go to places in India, Nepal, or Bhutan for decades to learn these practices before they even think about passing that knowledge on to someone else. They dedicate their lives to it. Same with yoga. A 200 hour yoga teacher training isn’t enough to understand the meaning behind yoga poses or truly understand what it does for your body. This is another art form that people study for years of their lives. And they never stop studying it. If it was really that easy, then I shouldn’t hear a peep about yoga being taken over by rich, white women, right? If you really wanted to share this information with people, if you really cared about the art and not just do it to be different the effort would reflect that.

But it’s the SA dance community where I see people cutting corners the most. I do see both sides of this argument so bear with me. Dance is one of the few things that helps a lot of SA’s relate to each other. It’s something that should be encouraged. I’m in complete support of there being more SA dancers in the industry and for those dancers to host workshops of their own and make their own money. A lot of these people are my friends or people I really respect and I will happily attend and support their journey. Now, I know a lot of these instructors are classically trained. They probably spent over 10 years of their lives (if completed an arangetram or alt.) studying, practicing, and learning from a guru. But I ask these people directly, if someone who had just started their classical training (meaning less than 10 years training, practicing, and performing) and decided to become a guru themselves and start teaching classes, how would that look to you?

Therefore, why do we feel comfortable jumping into a different dance space including Bhangra, Hip Hop, Popping, Waacking/Vogueing without the proper education or training? Even if you are only teaching Classical classes, the training should never stop. Becoming a teacher isn’t just something for fun or for clout, it takes a lot of discipline and decades of training. You never stop being a student. 

My biggest pet peeve is willful ignorance. Especially when you’ve been called out several times for not showing up or showing the proper respect for something. People are so willing to forgive and forget it happens all the time so it really takes nothing to swallow your pride and acknowledge that sometimes you need to take a step back into the students seat. But when you choose to ignore that, choose to disrespect the art form and the community from where it comes from, when you actively choose to not listen to or learn from other people, that’s when you’re doing it wrong. 

When you don’t spend any of your time in other classes, training and connecting with people outside of your own bubble, you can’t call yourself a teacher because you can barely call yourself a professional dancer. Some people think I’m really strict on people, including myself, about this. But truly how can you say you’re decolonizing something and then partner with only white people to do it… East meets West? You’re from the West!

Dance is a lifestyle. There’s nothing wrong with doing it for fun and making videos for yourself and for others to see, that’s great! But having people pay you to teach them technique is fraudulent, especially if this is the beginning of your professional dance journey. Many professional dancers don’t become teachers until way later in their career or in their lives and even then they’re vetted by the community. And please don’t bring up the argument about how because we have a lack of representation, someone needs to do it first. I can list a number of dancers around my age who have been performing and training for years, who are so talented and their technique is so strong, that they would be highly qualified to teach classes. Everyone wants to be that person, everyone wants to be first. That doesn't mean that you should be. This issue has been addressed several times by several different people but it truly blows my mind how a lot of SA’s can just start a dance class teaching a variety of dance styles and yet I have rarely seen them out in LA at any one of the hundreds of dance classes that are being conducted daily. 

Some dancers that you should check out because I have either seen their work ethic or see their sincerity and that they share a part of themselves in every dance video/class that they host (if they do host) : Ishita Milli, Drisya Reghuram, Swathi Jaisankar, Harini Nilakantan, Amrit Kaur, Anisha Kula, Iman Esmail, and if you want more just ask me. 

For other art styles : music, henna, painting, sculpture, sewing etc, I feel like it’s much harder to fake your way through it. People can spot in seconds whether something feels genuine. You can see the talent clearly. But even some of those artists fall into the trap of popularizing content that only relates to a small population and slapping the term desi over it. Even this, my very loose attempt at arts criticism could be criticized itself. Why should I care that people are making a living wearing saris and their mother’s jewelry? Who cares that people are making Bollywood dance classes? Why does art have to be taken so seriously? 

It absolutely doesn’t. This may sound hypocritical but let me remind you that both of these stances can exist in one argument. Start your dance class, do your beauty routine with your jhumkas and wedding jewelry, I SUPPORT IT. It has become the most popular way for SA’s to express themselves online and it has cemented itself as one of the facets of being a SA creator so make your money!! I’m not going to fight it. However, 1. Remember this is not and should not be the only way for SA’s to influence 2. We need to hold each other to a higher standard to be able to enjoy the art and truly support each other. I do hope that after reading this, you think a little harder of how to be a more intentional creator and how that small effort on your part can help push a lot of SA’s out of hating on literally every little attempt we make to be creative. 

BE SEXY

You know what I do appreciate is the South Asian creative scene? SEX WORKERS. Or creatives that use their sexuality to push their brand forward. Brown people embracing their sexuality openly and boldly, getting creative with it, pairing the idea of sex with the idea of being SA. THAT is what pushing the boundaries of culture is. THAT is decolonizing what being Desi means. That is a subset of SA influencers that needs more recognition because they are actively pushing us out of our comfort zones and into a place where we can see each other as full human beings and not just a caricature. There’s no posturing or pretending to be anything. It takes a great deal of courage and strength to be able to be so visibly sex positive and these people are also some of the most creative influencers I have seen. I highly recommend you check out and support these creators, if you know more please boost them. 

@my_desigirl_ @rani.punnani @priyankaares @shaunromy @sinfully.a.brunette ; @jasl.en @reversecowgurl69

I love seeing SA people in the modeling industry. Hands down some of the most interesting people I’ve ever met. That’s changing the game. Different body types, body hair, different cultural backgrounds. And when you’re going forward to attack major fashion brands, you’re attacking the issue of lack of representation at the root. Here are some people I love. Check out their pages to find more people of interest. @spacelordnova @taararani @ghaazelle 

In general, here's a collection of dope ass SA’s that I feel are pushing the expectations of what it means to embrace their culture, encourage others to try new things, and showing people that there are a million and one different ways to be a SA in this creative space.  

@sarvanieloheimo @nonazar.la @biancamaieli @m2ray @sheerahr @lostindianboy @saisailu97 @jharnabhagwani @abbygovindan @myeshachou @rishipuff @rajivmenon @horsepowar @sharanguru @casjerome @geena_singh @antorvingomes @hafandhaf @sarahanwarkhan @crbeby @sandhyadhawan @mangorehma @shreybaebee @rahuled @vabyvel @iamfijiana @heleenatattoos and wayyy more, if you want more just ask. 

OWN YOUR SHIT

Unfortunately even a lot of creators whose content I admire also need to be checked. It seems like no matter whether or not you put a lot of effort into your work and whether you can create something beautiful and reputable, a lot of the time a lot of creatives just aren’t great people. And this might be a hot take but from all the creators that I’ve come in contact with, there are very very few who I consider to be genuinely nice people. I have also started to realize that in the future I might not be able to be in community with a lot of SA people because I just don’t trust the work that we put out. This conversation is so deeply rooted in what it means to be SA that I think that nothing will really change regardless of how many conversations we have and maybe we will always be just a watered down version of what we could be. 

So I’m curious to see what else you got. 

Most people aren’t doing this to spread change and influence SA’s to be better people. A lot of people need to make a living or they want the brand deals and all the perks that come with being an influencer and this is how they do that. And that’s fine. Get your bag. Nobody is saying don’t do it. A lot of people are rich. Own it. A lot of people just want to be rich and famous. OWN IT. Who cares! That’s an admirable goal. I actually don’t judge anyone who wants to get famous just because. You don’t need to claim to have an ulterior motive, I for one would respect you more if you didn’t. 

I guess my main message is to be intentional. There is a surefire path to becoming an influencer and if you know how to crack that code, you can be successful however, once you stop taking the initiative to learn and start creating for quick results, that’s when it becomes reductive because you fall into the path of taking the easy way out. Great content creation takes a lot of planning, effort, and energy to create something worthwhile. Don’t cheapen that.