Unlike many people who turn into viral sensations on the social media, the story of Jaymukh Gopinath whose video on YouTube has garnered over 16 million views, has now become a matter of the international headlines. Jaymukh Gopinath is a chicken seller based in a small village of Tamil Nadu. His son Arumugam, is an amateur filmmaker who films his dad selling chicken legs and named the video ‘King of Chicken Legs / Using 100 Chicken Legs / Prepared by my Daddy’. The views on the video have been increasing with each day ever since it has been uploaded on YouTube.
Arumugam (26 years) never planned to make his father a YouTube sensation. Earlier he used to work as an assistant director in Tamil films and later started filming the videos featuring his father.
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Jaymukh (62 years) has been a door-to-door salesman and due to being unable to find delicious meals during his travels, he started preparing them himself.
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Arumugam posted his first video on July 24, 2016 in which Jaymukh could be seen simmering crabs. The father-son duo have made hundreds of such videos till now and have garnered millions of views on their channel. In a time period of two years, their channel ‘Village Food Factory’ has garnered two millions YouTube subscribers. The two have figured out their own formula to captivate their viewers – ‘The cook’s simplicity and the meals getting prepared with only a handful of ingredients!’
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The most popular YouTube video on the channel throws light on Jaymukh’s perfection as he puts two hundred pieces of chicken into a large oil vessel.
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If you talk about the production process of these videos, the shots are wobbly, cuts are random and the videos are often controlled by windy backgrounds.
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The fame of this family has crossed boundaries. One Canadian woman even sent them a letter asking for an autographed picture of Jaymukh. YouTube business has changes their lives for the good. The family that struggled to make their ends meet has now bought a seven hundred square foot house. With the help of the good number of views, they have bought a car and a TV set.
Note: The story was originally published in The New Yorker.
