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From comedy sketches with AIB to analysing cringy Tik Toks and giving us gems like Pakistani Uber chats or the latest Pitai Reviews, Tanmay Bhat has come a long way. He has ensured to keep us entertained with his fresh ideas even when things have gone against him. We recently had him over to discuss this digital journey at our Entrepreneur Summit in Delhi. Although the comedian started with a disclaimer that he has learnt his lessons from controversies in the past and now his “opinions are reserved for private conversation”, he openly shared his thoughts on various subjects.
We started with his journey and from outside looking in he has been through alot. We wondered how he deals with change and challenges. Bhat said, “Growth happens not from years of experience but number of experiences a year.” He explained how age does not correlate with experience and more importantly does not ensure experience. It may sound cliche but the man was onto something when saying that you need to fall in life to pick yourself back up and that he was grateful he fell several times. He looks back at these lows as a learning curve and above all an important thing to have happened. “We are as good as our last work,” he said and hence feels the need to keep performing and pushing himself to deliver better work for his audience.
The comedian shared that his views on feedback are similar. He said, “Someone who truly wishes to express themselves, should not complain about trolling. If you want a comment section that is full of comments, you can not expect all of it to be praise and why should it be.” He explained how we always need someone to direct us be it in the form of backlash, feedback or even a manager. “In real life artists do make great work but they always need an artistic manager to help them get there,” he said. He shared that his first manager he ever met in his life was in the year 2011 when he was performing standup on a stage. He said the chap came up to him after his show and said how much he enjoyed it; however, he suggested Tanmay do the same on YouTube. “At the time I dismissed it but eventually we took his advice and our lives changed.”
Bhat emphasized that he loves to write for ads, ” I mean what is not to love, you write ads for your favorite celebrity and you get to go viral on someone else’s money,” he said. What worked for him was the people he got to work with. He expressed how lucky he was to find a founder and team that “have an artistic taste. Creative people are the best judge of creativity.” He explained that the people on board were creative personally and hence were not apprehensive of doing something unconventional. His last thoughts on advertising were that “Brands are built over years not just one campaign”. That does reduce pressure and the comedian did not mind confessing that he does enjoy working with the same creative people again and again as “Creative partnerships, they last decades,” he concluded.
