A psychological breakdown of what makes a viral personality truly viral

It was an average Delhi morning in 2021 with the usual hum of the traffic dominating the urban soundscape. And then out of a tunnel, came a piercing cry, “YYEEEEAAAHHHH”. 

The man behind this high-decibel scream was Puneet Kumar (or “Lord Puneet” as his fans call him). Unemployed or “nalla berozgaar” as he says in his videos, Puneet had struggled a lot to make it as an actor.  He already was garnering a big fanbase on TikTok before India banned the Chinese app in June 2020. Much like many other content creators from suburban areas, Puneet’s mental state was negatively affected. 

But on that fateful 2021 day, the 30-something screamed for no particular reason. In a few podcast appearances later, Puneet has added that he probably had to relieve some burden off his chest and that scream was perhaps the only way he could let it all out. 

It was this scream that turned Puneet viral. 

But then again, what exactly makes someone go viral?

The answer to this question gets broader with every passing day as the confusion around entities like the Instagram algorithm continues. Be it with a normal upload unexpectedly blowing out of proportion or just a randomly-omitted snippet worthy of a meme template, the notions of virality are more democratised now. 

“Social media has shifted the paradigm so much that traditional methods of becoming famous don’t work anymore,” says Kolkata-based mental health practitioner Aakash G. Commenting on Puneet Kumar’s unprecedented fame, he adds, “A man lying in a muddy pool (keechad) is still absurdly funny in today’s times and enough to make someone viral. This was unimaginable if we go back a few decades.”

Following his viral scream, Puneet has managed to make the jump from TikTok to Instagram with an ever-growing fanbase and a recent stint on the ongoing season of Bigg Boss OTT. Most of Puneet’s Reels showcase his uncensored and unhinged sense of humour and can find him jumping into muddy water (as Aakash pointed out earlier), smearing chilli powder on his face, or just looking at the camera and screaming “YEAAHHHH”. 

Writer, podcaster and Instagram personality Anurag Minus Verma calls Puneet Kumar a harbinger of a new wave of Indian absurdism. He looks at Puneet’s content as more than just “mere shitposts” but a reflection of the tastes of India’s diverse and volatile Instagram demographic. 

In his appearance on The Anurag Minus Verma podcast, Puneet even remarked how he just laughs at content creators who are investing in equipment and marketing to become viral when he can do the same with practically no budget. Puneet might have been evicted from the Bigg Boss house but he has managed to win over so many netizens that #BoycottBiggBoss began trending soon after his departure from the show. Merchandising and paid promotions followed soon after. 

“In an era when even ‘shitposting’ is a heavily researched topic, the people who are going viral now are subverting the labels with which we defined content earlier,” Aakash adds while reminiscing Puneet’s popularity. 

“Anything that is funny always has a higher chance of engagement but then what again defines funny anymore? Every genre of content had to stick to some rules earlier. But what happened after postmodernism is that now, we can see through the bullshit. All that classification is growing irrelevant in a volatile space like social media more so when a mysterious algorithm causes confusion on what exactly can make one go viral.” 

While Puneet’s unexpectedly meteoric rise continues, his entry into the mainstream can be traced back to that 2021 video. Be it one-hit wonders or meme sensations with a longer shelf life, all such new-age viral sensations have had their origin story.

Vipin Sahu AKA the “paragliding man” had gone viral for a 2019 vlog that he was shooting while paragliding. Fearing the altitude, Sahu delivered some relatable and meme-able lines like “Main pagal hu jo isme aaya” and “500 zyada lele par land kara de bhai”.

Even controversial hate-mongering influencers like Hindustani Bhau (another Bigg Boss alumnus) cemented their claim to fame from one viral expletive-heavy video (followed by many more showcasing the full extent of Bhau’s Islamophobic and misogynistic persona). Following his Bigg Boss tenure, Bhau even managed to release a few unbearable songs. 

In some cases, the origin of virality is not even an Instagram or YouTube upload. It can be any clip that later gains traction on these online platforms. A memorable example can be that of Malayalam actress Priya Prakash Varrier. More than her acting skills, online audiences remember her chiefly for her wink in a scene from the 2018 movie Oru Adaar Love. That one wink was enough to break the internet and Varrier became Google’s most searched Indian celebrity that year. 

It's clear that being viral has also gone beyond all age groups contrary to the stereotype that only Gen-Z-ers can create trends. Just have a glimpse at this elderly couple who recently won the hearts of many online observers for recreating the video of Kishore Kumar's iconic love ballad Rimjhim Gire Saawan.

But then again, not everyone can manage the virality after their one shot of fame. “Some people might be viral even if they don’t have the motive to go viral.”

Aakash’s statement rings true in the face of meme sensations like the famous Pakistani “yeh bik gayi hai gormint” aunty whose anti-state rage fuelled the laughter of many on the other side of the border. 

But while aunty-ji might not want brand deals and a million followers, there are some viral personalities who garnered social media buzz for a while and then couldn’t retain their virality.

The aforementioned paragliding man went on to appear in a Perk ad with Alia Bhatt to recreate his vlog (sans the explicit language) and was a semi-finalist on Roadies 2020. He entertains more than 90,000 of his Instagram followers under the username @theparaglidingman_official but he hasn’t indulged in any other trendsetting video ever since.

But then again, his Reels generate a rough average of ten thousand views. That should be viral enough, right? On this, Aakash adds that the pressure on content creators to entertain a larger audience base with every new upload is considerably high because of how “the playground has widened”. 

“Even if people had the need to be relevant or stand out from the crowd in the pre-Internet era, even entertaining a hundred people could make you popular enough. If you think about it, a thousand people interacting with your content today should also be a good number. But in the context of social media, thousand is obviously no huge number. Thousand is equivalent to one now!”

This might ring true for one-hit wonders like Rhythm Chanana AKA the Delhi Metro Girl. Rhythm made national headlines when she stepped out in a skimpy outfit in a Delhi Metro coach. The video of her walking around while drawing glares from the metro crowds opened up a Pandora's box of multiple opinions.

Some netizens praised her viral moment as a statement against moral policing of women’s wardrobe choices. The Delhi Metro Rail Corporation (DMRC) clearly saw Rhythm’s semi-nude journey as the end of days, prompting them to impose stricter security guidelines (also resulting from other viral videos of couples getting chummy in the metro and one male creep even touching himself). 

ALSO READ: 5 Delhi Metro fights that took a nasty turn and were caught on video

While there are numerous Instagram accounts posing as her, Rhythm’s current “official” account relies on a mere 3,000-something followers. She uploads makeup and wardrobe styling videos now but they all lack the “it factor” that made her Delhi Metro social experiment so viral. 

Rhythm seems to be content with her post-virality content creation but some of these viral faces might face pressure to catch up with their single moment of share-able glory. Commenting on this hypothesis, Aakash comments that uncertainty in any context can be “a major reason for anyone to feel anxious”. The same can be said for social media. 

 “Unpredictability and not having control creates a tension and pressure on the person (the content creator in this case).” This unpredictability looms large especially in the face of an enigmatic algorithm, the same algorithm that can make one engage in frustrated screams like “YEEAAAAAHH”.