Comedy collective All India Bakchod's insult comedy show "AIB Knockout" has notched up a cumulative 4 million views within two days of its YouTube debut, of which the first million came within 12 hours, which frankly is quite unprecedented for a comedy show in India. For the uninitiated, AIB Knockout appears to be inspired by Comedy Central's Roast series wherein celebrities are subjected to barbs and insult jokes from a panel of comedians and their peers for the amusement of a wider audience. This is quite a refreshing change from the regular celebrity talk shows or interviews which usually turns out to be a PR-driven exercise that happens around a film release or any other significant event. This actually reminds me of Priyanka Chopra's disastrous Reddit AMA (Ask Me Anything) encounter last year. Some thoughts on what helped it go viral: - Explicit content: One of the things that stood out in the video was its explicit nature with the jokes ranging from being outrageously offensive to brazen and very personal and a free flow of expletives throughout the show. To get a sense of the jokes made in the show, check out this BuzzFeed article. This was possible due to the liberal nature of the Internet and possibly wouldn't have been the same on any other platform like television which is heavily censored and the whole channel is suspended if "obscene" content is aired on the channel. Interestingly, All India Bakchod co-founder Tanmay Bhatt said that around 40% of the show was edited out of the YouTube version due to various…
