It is glaringly obvious that stand-up comedian Tanmay Bhat is trying hard to become a YouTube star again. He was once the brain behind All India Bakchod — AIB — but now relies on his friends in the comedy circle to support his comeback with online roasts and games of PubG.
However, his sketch titled ‘The AIB Hangover’ featuring the other AIB founder Rohan Joshi, is a prime example of what not to do when trying to make a comeback. He could be creating the funniest, most woke content in the country, but he should steer clear from trying to bring up AIB in his videos. The platform will always be a reminder of how the founders let women down and went against the very core of the content they created.
I am not calling for ‘cancel culture’ here. But Bhat needs to address his former fans honestly first before he attempts to move forward.
Also Read: One year after India’s big #MeToo wave, a reality check
The downfall of AIB
AIB — a Mumbai-based comedy group and YouTube channel — was launched in 2012, around the same time when the term “woke culture” entered our lexicon. Embodying the term that finds its roots in the African American Vernacular English, their content addressed pressing issues like rape, ragging in engineering colleges and online harassment. The comedy group also did a show called On Air With AIB on Hotstar.
While over the years they faced criticism from many for using feminism as just another meme-worthy narrative to tap into, it was not until October 2018, that the wave of the MeToo movement in India violently uprooted the rapidly expanding comedy group turned creative agency.
Two of the four founders, Gursimran Khamba and Tanmay Bhat, were accused of involvement and complicit behaviour in two separate sexual harassment allegations. While Khamba has mostly vanished from the comedy scene, Bhat has made a comeback with his own YouTube channel, which crossed a million followers.
The greatest argument around the MeToo movement was that the life of the accused would be altered indefinitely, that there is no coming back and their career stands forever tainted. I don’t want to waste my time by trying to argue against that. There are plenty of examples of accused men going on about their lives with zero or minimal repercussions.
Also Read: Year after #MeToo apology, comic Utsav Chakraborty calls out 4 women on Twitter for ‘lies’
No clarification
The AIB controversy began in October 2018 and by May 2019, the company had put out an official statement: “The AIB YouTube channel is for all intents and purposes, dead for the foreseeable future — there will be no new sketches anytime soon,”
While there was no allegation of sexual harassment against Bhat, he reportedly ignored complaints about the same, confronted the accused but took no official action. This does not make him any less complicit than the accused himself, but people have been quick to forgive him. Perhaps, too quick?
He marked his return to YouTube with a namesake channel roughly five months ago with gaming videos. Building on the momentum he has gained since then, he along with comedian Kaneez Surka and media and entertainment lawyer Amshula Prakash raised over 17 lakh to help fund the fight against coronavirus by organising a two-day streaming event featuring over 80 comedians and artists. The work he is doing may be good, but one cannot just forget what happened. Passage of time does not always amount to forgetting and then forgiving.
In a video released in June 2019, Bhat talked about his mental condition after allegations of complicity were levelled against him in the MeToo movement. He said he felt “mentally checked out and unable to participate online or offline”. He went on to say how a major part of his self-confidence — “growing up as someone who looked like (him)” — became his work. He stated that he was diagnosed with clinical depression and was undergoing medical treatment. “Nobody wants to work with a depressed comedian,” he said. An almost four-minute long video, but there was no explanation about what happened and his role in it.
The onus lies on him to address this issue, speak about how it changed him and what he did wrong. As someone who once used to follow AIB, I believe he owes an explanation to his one-million strong viewership. That is the least he can do.
Views are personal.
ThePrint has been a bogus news source for a while, and nothing has changed with this piece.
I wish all the bad luck your way! Cheers.
If this is the level of incompetence you are willing to show in an article published for the world to see with your name on it , I wonder what gross mishaps are overlooked by your team privately. Firstly , a lot of what Mahima alleged has been disproved. She did not file an FIR or a case even after having such a strong support system. Wonder why? Because she doean’t want a legal seal of disproval on her resume . As for “not one statement from Mr Bhat” , multiple statements from the official company and individual twitter handles were made. Nothing has been proved in court and this media form of mob lynching is highly condemnable. This gross violation of limits is the very reason real victims don’t get a chamce to speak up. Have some shame and stop this tomfoolery.
solid piece, glad the team at print continues to go against the grain! Just a small request, maybe do an investigative piece on the multiverse of PubG, online gaming, live streaming and how several “bois locker rooms” are thriving in plain sight. This whole Carry Minati’s hate rant, gendered/homophobic pockets of the gaming community that celebrate the simulation of war and violence would explicate the “bhai culture” and what that does to the discourse on gender. Under the garb of millennial “wokeness”, Tanmay Bhat and his team have very conveniently collaborated with these young gamer boys. As passive-participants they encourage deeply misogynist behavior. His live gaming streams feature boys like Minati, Gareeb, Dynamo etc. A search on their own individual handles will show you exactly what kind of content they’re putting out there (look for Gareeb’s channel). Of course, this was all a strategy to build a base for his resurrection, second coming if you may. The constant cursing (maa-behen ki gali etc.) is something Tanmay seems to quite enjoy. One is not averse to curse words but please understand that the N word is to people of colour what these gendered curses are to women and the queer community. By simply including the likes of Kunal Kamra, Swara Bhaskar and Varun Grover in some of his content doesn’t mean he gets away with the pubg vitriol. Gaming isn’t bad per se but fostering the “bot army” (a name he gives to his loyal gaming fans and the men he plays with) and never questioning the politics of it is typical. Many hateful reditt forums included. More than an individual, Carry or Tanmay, we need to take a good hard look at what’s going on online. We need more journalists to unravel this pandora’s box.
Solid piece, this one! I wish The Print team would look further into the multiverse of PubG, online gaming and live streams. A closer look will unravel the Pandora’s box, full “bois locker rooms” operating in plain sight (on YouTube gaming streams and subsequent reddit forums). Extremely gendered, homophobic and violent in nature and a breeding ground for different varieties of online sexism. A little reasearch will help you connect the whole Carry Minati scene with the gamers and how Tanmay is a mute participant-spectator to a growing generation of locker room “bois”. An examination of the constant cussing, objectifying women and celebration of war and violence will help you unearth an entire cess pool of masculinity muck that Tanmay and his team do not feel the need to be accountable for. Of course his resurrection, second coming if you may, was established on this very loyal fan base of gamer boys. Some of whom you might find in this comment section too. Being culpable by association is not new to him. History teaches us nothing. Some journalists have begun uncovering these “games”. Now it’s the Print’s turn!
not aspected from the print this type of journalism (biased)
Thank you so much for writing this! However much I find his content funny at times, there is always an unease because of the harking back to AIB which was a bastion of privilege, entitlement and abuse. Just dissolving it with a statement without any initiative to start a conversation on how not to enable abusive behaviour in emergent fields like comedy speaks volumes about their ‘wokeness’. Depression is horrible but so is the trauma that women face because of a culture of harassment and being put down. And that trauma goes on for years and mostly, NEVER goes away. To all the people questioning and invalidating this writer (most of which are of course men), his paying a price is NOT the point. We are not looking at individual suffering here and using that to justify not working towards a more inclusive enviroment for women to work. It’s sad that Tanmay had to go through whatever he did personally but it doesn’t negate the fact that basically no conversation was started to make the space better for women. It’s not just him but the responsibility lies on everyone who was complicit in this whole thing. Till the time there is no such acknowledgement, the rot will go on.
There are some factual errors in this article:
“Gursimran Khamba has vanished completely from the comedy scene”
Fact: Khamba has been performing his comedy special “Lemons and Peaches” from Sep/Oct last year onwards in multiple cities.
“Only one statement has been released by AIB, no other clarification”
This is simply untrue. AIB had offered a clarification that it found Tanmay complicit immediately and apologised profusely for letting their fans down, even though the general response to any allegation during that period was “deny, deny, deny”.
Each of the accused comedians offered separate statements as well, and seven months after the incident, AIB shared another statement, finding Tanmay egregious, and pulling him down from his position.
Thank you so much for writing this! However much I find his content funny at times, there is always an unease because of the harking back to AIB which was a bastion of privilege, entitlement and abuse. Just dissolving it with a statement without any initiative to start a conversation on how not to enable abusive behaviour in emergent fields like comedy speaks volumes about their ‘wokeness’. Depression is horrible but so is the trauma that women face because of a culture of harassment and being put down. And that trauma goes on for years and mostly, NEVER goes away. To all the people questioning and invalidating the writer (most of which are of course men), his paying a price is NOT the point. We are not looking at individual suffering here and using that to justify not working towards a more inclusive enviroment for women to work. It’s sad that Tanmay had to go through whatever he did personally but it doesn’t negate the fact that basically no conversation was started to make the space better for women. It’s not just him but the responsibility lies on everyone who was complicit in this whole thing. Till the time there is no such acknowledgement, the rot will go on.
What an absolute trashy piece of journalism. I suppose the writer wants Tanmay to never make a comeback. There’s been absolutely no research on how Mr Bhat has expressed his remorse and repentance and the things he has gone through. Nobody’s forgetting his culpability in the rot that had set in AIB, but one can hope that lessons have been learnt and mistakes won’t be repeated. Mr Bhat deserves some leniency. I wouldn’t be advocating the same for a creep like Gursimran Khamba or that other guy who was the prime accused.
You need to shut up. You are part of that fake feminist gang. I am ashamed to be a liberal because of people like you. Who are you to call for his downfall. In the world of YouTube you word does not mean shit. India’s me too movement was a fake one, most of the allegations targeted innocent men.
why instigate a lynch mob for no obvious, valid reason? what’s this faux outrage in the name of journalism? lazy and incompetent is what screams from this piece.
you just accuse him of being “woke” when he’s gone through troubled times… in fact you’re just using it as a misnomer for your own biased piece.
terrible!
Couldn’t agree more , they are the prosecutors and jury themselves
People like you will never let anyone move on!
You think people have been quick to forgive him? No, because nobody knew where was he after that controversy for one year or more, gained so much wait again, was is depression and was willing to QUIT MEDIA! You think that’s not enough? Shame on you.
He made brilliant comeback and he very well deserved it. Do your research before posting anything and let him Move on!
What kind of journalism is this ?? Views are completely biased. Please go back to the university you came from if you even went to one.
What kind of shitty journalism is this ?? Views are completely biased. Please go back to the university you came from if you even went to one.
Stop targeting him after he has struggled so much and is finally getting a break through. Now that he’s doing good on his channel you want to degrade him and insult his followers as well as his subscribers?
People like you dont like to see hard working people succeed. Shame on the print for allowing this trash on their website
Just stop being STUPID. We the fans of tanmay bhat have seen him struggle. You should have seen his video when he came out to depression just don’t. If you can’t support him just don’t but don’t spread hate. He isn’t bad you’re making him look bad.
This honestly just feels like a fan asking for answers which is out there a very jealous fake feminist.
Let people live. And this isnt news it is a blog.
Idiot, the point that he never “explained” is totally irrelevant at present. The accusations have already been proven false. I don’t think that there was a need for him to explain anything. Please do a proper research before spitting false bullcrap about a guy who is working so hard and has suffered so much. It’s just that now he has made a comeback and you can’t digest it. The Sketch “AIB HANGOVER” was just a joke. Do you seriously think that his 1 MILLION subscribers don’t know about his past, and they are just blindly following him? They know that he was innocent and they are happy that he is back on the scene. Perhaps there is a lot of people in the world who are sadistic pieces of crap, and you for sure are one of them. So please, stop being jealous and do proper research before posting an article next time.
This looks more like theprint is not happy for tanmay’s success for I guess their own reasons( maybe jealousy).
This clearly shows tanmay was right about his joke quoting “media houses these days ran by bunch of interns”.
I literally hate this type of journalism, where you write and entire essay putting your own opinion forward and then strongly criticising someone based on your own “personal views”……As far as Tanmay Bhatt is concerned he had already suffered a lot, his 1 million strong followers have accepted his apology. And that’s why his YouTube channel reached 1M in just 5 months…. don’t you get it? What else do you want him to do? Call a press conference and shoutout an apology? This is just nonsense….and so is your journalism….we are all with Tanmay Sir….so just put a lid on your rubbish journalism….
I admire print and promoted it to all my friends, I believed it’s new age journalism with reporting facts and opinions that actually matter and quality of the Articles.
But I am disappointed immensely on this rant, this had no substance whatsoever written out of jealously and pettiness who don’t have magnanimity to see some one suffered a lot reached bottom and bouncing back by one step at a time.. this looks like a crap written by some small minded person out of frustration of failures of thier own life..
Personally I have supported a feminist movements in work or society. But what happened to AIB is a over reaction. They needed some awareness may be punishment they deserve but not complete destruction of careers the built over the years and loss to the lakhs of fans. If AIB was active imagine the content and movements they must have created on CAA,NRC, Fake news etc like how they succeeded in open internet debate.
I should have appreciated the author, if he/she discussed with both perspective like the tweets of the girl to utsav chakraworty shared, is it actually harassment or mutual consent going bit over board. AIB got punished without trail now it turns out it’s not there fault completely.
I hope print will review article going further, instead giving platform to third grade rant by some lowlife person like this article.
He has spoken about all that a looooootttt…. If he talks more about AIB it’s an overkill. As someone in the comments already mentioned, please follow Tanmay and his past posts. He has talked way more than people who were accused, in different industries and unlike most … He has accepted responsibility and suffered the consequences.
It took a lot for fans (as well) to go through the process along with Tanmay and personally I am happy that he has finally figured out a way to re-establish himself.
Yes!
As much as i love his new channel, i feel that he should have at least acknowledged the issue. I thought that may be there are legal complications that prevented him in doing so. But i hope he does address the issue considering that many are young/female viewers.
I really appreciate his content, and miss the AIB videos but not even acknowledging the mistakes is not the way i would want it to go as a strong supporter of the metoo culture.
However, a conventional looking guy might find it easier to come back, but maybe not tanmay considering he is still fat shamed constantly in the comments. Btw khamba/utsav are not in the limelight so that explains it.
Maybe in the future, he might address it. That’s the least he could do.
What a desperate attempt to get content.
It’s high time journalists understand the true meaning of “Love and let Live'”.
Or there might come a time where no one take journalists seriously.
Because for modern journalists, TRP and viewership is all that matters.
What a desperate attempt to get content.
It’s high time journalists understand the true meaning of “Love and let Live'”.
Or there might come a time where no one take journalists seriously.
Because for modern journalists, TRP and viewership is all that matters.
#mediabullshit #poorcontent #liveandletlive
This article just proves how media targets people unnecessarily. Modern journalists have forgotten their very importance and the critical role they play in a society. TRP and viewership is all that matter? Can’t a man ever walk free in his life?
I strongly condemn what the man had done in the past. He has got the result for the same.
But in the present day while he is trying “hard” (as you say), which in my opinion he isn’t, because he is an extremely talented man, he must be let free right?
It’s high time journalists must understand the meaning of ‘ Live and let live’, or there might be a time where no-one would take journalists seriously.
#stupidjournalism #liveandletlive #mediabullshit
Peace.
Mr Deol your words says how you envy of Bhat
“The work he is doing may be good, but one cannot just forget what happened.” Raising money for good cause is not ‘May be good’, it is good. U can’t even raise a single penny with your writing. Grow up buddy.
You are too late on this universe The Print. You should have followed him on instagram from the beginning.I have seen him struggle alot though depression because of this. He has admitted/Confessed about it! Went through all the hell pain and now you want him to hang himself? Are you seriously a news channel? Don’t make him sound like a murderer
You are too late on this universe The Print. You should have followed him on instagram from the beginning.I have seen him struggle alot though depression because of this. He has admitted/Confessed about it! Went through all the hell pain and now you want him to hang himself? Are you seriously a news channel? Don’t make him sound like a murderer. Get some life
Solve your glitch so that people could post comment here!
You are too late on this universe The Print. You should have followed him on instagram from the beginning.I have seen him struggle alot though depression because of this. He has admitted/Confessed about it! Went through all the hell pain and now you want him to hang himself? Are you seriously a news channel? Don’t make him sound like a murder…
I guess you are being too critical. And What kind of closure is “Views are personal”. Either you stand by your views or you just don’t write an entire essay and then show up saying ,views are personal. #stupid_journalism
I guess you are being too critical. What kind of closure is “Views are personal”. Either you stand by your views or you just don’t write an entire essay and then comment views are personal. #stupid_journalism
R u stupid? This is not even a news report. It’s u ranting ur opinion believing on what u believe. R u so jealous that u can’t see a hard working person succeed? As for the sexual misconduct, there r call recordings available that says how Utsav Chakraborty was falsely accused nd u cannot get justice on the internet, u get unnecessary judgement. Look at the bois locker room case. So before jumping on the bandwagon nd shouting fake feminism, just think if what u r believing is completely true or not. It’s very problematic for us to exist bcz of people like u, real feminists who actually want equality, want to have the same opportunities nd even r ready to accept cuss words thrown at us whn someone’s wrong. This whole idea that u need to respect women is so wrong. U only need to respect people who deserve respect, irrespective of their gender. People who have genuinely suffered can’t even come out nd say stuff bcz these women have already muddled the movement with fake accusations. So get down from ur high horse nd see the reality.
Isnt the case he ws involved with took a u turn and prooved to be a fake allegation claim. Kindly clarify your personal views before posting!!
Questions I would like to ask to this esteemed journalist who has taken the time out to write this down, which also sparks off some important other questions that are to be addressed :-
1) Can a man, ever accused of rape/sexual misconduct/ sexual harrassment/ attempts to cover it or whatever that might be (wrong, or right) ever walk free in life ? (to the point raised by the person on “There are plenty of examples of accused men going on about their lives with zero or minimal repercussions.”)
2) 2 years is approximately equivalent to 730 days, and it’s not “too quick” as per my comprehension and strength of understanding goes. Also, if he said that he got diagnosed with clinical depression and had gone on the say that it had taken a huge toll on him- please allow to be him, and not that “comedian” tanmay bhatt. No offence, but who are you to request for an honest closure from him, despite you being a “fan” ?
3) He was an accomplice to a crime, right ? He got what he deserved, right ? The entire thing got shut down, right ? His very identity got shut down, right ? How much more should he need to go through, when you not as a journalist but as a flamboyant “social justice warrior” decide that it is enough for him to move on ?
Taran Deol owes a response to her readers as to why she writes articles when it can be summarised in under 280 characters.
ThePrint owes us a response as to why we need to read an ‘opinion piece’ by someone who has no locus foci in this matter – if she claims to be a consumer of Mr Bhat’s content, so are at least a million subscribers of his.
This is indicative of rot setting in an otherwise promising news organization. It saddens me that ThePrint has descended to asking Taran Deol to write opinion pieces on things she is not even close to being the best qualified to do. She has limited skin in the game to be offered this much space. The problem is tomorrow, she and her peers will feel ‘entitled’ to this space. And just because you need to increase engagement, why offer it to Taran Deol and not credible influencers of this issue? ThePrint is not Scoopwhoop. And nor is it Taran Deol’s personal blog. The editorial decision making of ThePrint is to blame for stagnancy in reader engagement. And that hurts early adopters like me.
So succinctly put. Totally agree with you
Couldn’t agree more
He has payed the price for his mistakes…please look somewhere else for content.