Before breaking out as a singer-actor, Bhuvan Bam was an internet sensation. At a time when one’s social-media presence holds huge value, filmmakers are fast turning to potential performers’ social media numbers while casting. Bam experienced it first-hand.

“Maine dekha hai yeh. I was being preferred over someone and I got to know about it. Reason wahi, ‘Itne followers hain aapke, aap aa jao’. Maine kaha, ‘Arre, batao toh sahi, role kya hai, story kya hai’ This happens a lot. My friends tell me that [between] a person who has four-five thousand followers and a person who has one-two million followers, [the latter is preferred],” shares the 28-year-old, recently seen in the show Taaza Khabar, which he produced as well.

The singer-actor puts it down to a business-forward mindset. “They think, ‘Who can get more footfall in theatres, who can get more traffic on streaming platforms?’ I think theek hai, agar aapko yeh karna hai toh karo, eventually you will know what the story is about. Pata chal jaata hai agar story mein dum nahin hai, aur phir kuchh nahin ho sakta,” Bam explains.

This contradicts the commonly accepted belief that OTT has changed the game for both content and deserving artistes. Has creativity taken a backseat on the web, too? “Yes, because we don’t live in creative surroundings. It’s all algorithm-based. Abhi aap algorithm ke mohtaaj hain. If I put a post versus a reel on Instagram, people will watch the reel more, because it benefits the platform from a business point-of-view. Earlier, it used to last 15 seconds. Now, they allow a minute. But nothing will stay the same, change is constant,” he ends.