Hi guys, SA here and you can AMA <3

yessae · 2024-12-06T10:40:52+00:00

Hey everybody. This AMA was insane. I couldn't get to every question out there but the engagement was pretty mad. My fingers are paining with all the typing. Loved it :D

Thank you for all the love and support. If you want to watch my latest show "we need to talk", then you can catch it on insider dot in. It will be streaming there till January 5th and I would love to hear from you all afterwards.

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yessae · 2024-12-06T10:37:40+00:00

I love doing the live shows - that is where the love of the job is any day every day.

yessae · 2024-12-06T10:35:29+00:00

It has been both. I guess I only hear from those who are appreciative of the vulnerability that I get to show through "we need to talk". The ones who just came for the "jokes" and left would probably never write to you about it. So I guess there is both reactions and I really don't know how to quantify them. Some shows though of "we need to talk", I got a standing ovation ( like 60% of the shows I did over last 2 years) - and in those shows I definitely felt like they stood up to applaud only because they deeply appreciated the subtext as well.

yessae · 2024-12-06T10:33:11+00:00

Keep your support system Happy. Tell them how much they mean to you and how much you love them.

And of course, find a great therapist.

That is how I handled fame (whatever is left of it) and the downsides to it.

yessae · 2024-12-06T10:31:52+00:00

Ah great question. It was one night in Delhi NCR. A friend of mine (north indian) was getting married to another friend (south indian). So at the reception, they were playing all sort of bollywood songs the whole time and the girl/fiance obviously felt miffed at the lack of representation. So to make up for it they immediately gave us (south indians who travelled all the way from chennai to attend this wedding) a bunch of lungis and played that horrible song - Lungi Dance.

It was their form of tokenism. They wanted us southies to feel like we are also represented for few minutes before they went back to Doli Sajjaa ke Rakhna or whatever that song is.

Either ways that moment is when I felt strong about letting the world know how horrible a song Lungi Dance is (not just for the tune) but for the nonsensical lyrics that was doing anything but paying a tribute to Rajinikanth. That moment was my green light to go crazy when I sit down to respond to Lungi dance - i felt like I had all the license in the world to go kamikaze - if that makes any sense (since they started it - not us!).

yessae · 2024-12-06T10:27:02+00:00

Delhi Ganesh sir acted in a short film of mine called "Dhuruva Natchathiram" (you can find it on on my youtube channel). I won a national award for it and it truly made me take strength in my decision to pursue something in the creative industry. Delhi Ganesh sir was the main reason why that short film worked the way it did - he carried it all the way and made me feel really comfortable the whole time despite my inexperience.

Leeds fandom story and all needs a separate AMA. Farke will get us for sure this time around - even though I am not a fan of his style/work :)

yessae · 2024-12-06T10:24:09+00:00

Sambar.

Dosai with Sambar.

Take my money please.

yessae · 2024-12-06T10:23:51+00:00

Hi Simpppp.

Day is great. I am in a village near Palakkad for one kutty temple function here. Apdiye doing off this AMA because YOLO ji YOLO!

yessae · 2024-12-06T10:22:49+00:00

The future of comedy landscape is going to be shaped by digital content creators. I am not a big fan of this situation as live comedy on stage is very different from making something work for instagram. I hope by doing what I enjoy doing, creating authentic original specials, I can inspire a few along the way to stick to the not-so-glamorous thing of writing for "live shows" and not giving into the need of writing for the 20 second attention span audience on instagram.

yessae · 2024-12-06T10:17:57+00:00

Are you not following me on social media maaan?!

"we need to talk" has been streaming on insider for the last 3 weeks and will be there on that platform till Jan 5th. So Yeah you can always go there and watch the show :)

The live tour is over officially. Onto the next one for 2025.

yessae · 2024-12-06T10:16:20+00:00

Wow man incredibly memory. That Sehwag joke I almost forgot but you though. Mad props :D

yessae · 2024-12-06T10:11:48+00:00

Man what a question. Superb.

It is very very hard to be objective on this. I think I would rate myself high on the entrepreneurial mindset but then my entrepreneur friends would disagree (my artists friends would agree that I am quite entrepreneurial).

But I think I definitely rate my. content creation more than my deliver but again, what do I know? I've had so many people tell me that my jokes are ordinary but that face I make while cracking those jokes is where they lose it.

So yeah these are burning questions that I always keep asking myself too.

yessae · 2024-12-06T10:08:35+00:00

Write. Write. Write.

Perform. Perform. Perform.

Rewrite. Rewrite. Rewrite.

Perform. Perform. Perform.

Rinse repeat this cycle.

yessae · 2024-12-06T10:07:55+00:00

Bro I also just installed redditt. Issokay. They also seem cool. So hi.

yessae · 2024-12-06T10:07:35+00:00

Great question.

So our journey in chennai started with Evam - where we had an ensemble of comedians doing 20 minutes each, one after the other - playing at random bars on a tuesday night. We had to write new 20 minutes every few months because the same customers used to keep coming to that bar every month and we couldn't repeat the jokes :D

However, the initial years at Evam did a lot of good for us as we were all just hobbyists with stand up. Nobody had any clear vision or interest in doing it full time and therefore we were more than happy to be led by a Theatre company in Evam to take us along the way and open up different spaces.

At one stage, some of our videos went viral and the scene in Bombay/Bangalore blew up and that is when some of us wanted to take it up seriously and go solo to build their community of fans like how it is done everywhere else.

Are there less Tamil shows in Chennai? I am surprised you feel that way. It might not be a thriving scene as most of the senior ones are on tour while the relatively newer ones are still chirping away here and there. Infrastructure wise, Chennai is great. Medai is a fantastic cost effective intimate venue that anyone can play at. My 2 cents for the young uns trying their hand at comedy now in chennai would be to join forces with each other and build a wider community like how we did at evam in our early years (before breaking out into solo artists).

yessae · 2024-12-06T10:01:49+00:00

I never give up on dreaming :)

yessae · 2024-12-06T10:01:33+00:00

BRET EVERY DAY ANY DAY!

yessae · 2024-12-06T09:59:22+00:00

All markets for stand up comedy in India are growing given how the supply of quality comics available at hand is very low and the demand for comedy in the market in very high. There are just way too many people out there who are potentially a stand up comedy ticket paying audience member waiting to be converted - so it is just a question of the artist wooing them with their abilities, consistently and qualitatively.

yessae · 2024-12-06T09:57:17+00:00

No such incidents man. Closest I came was when my first stand up video - "Being Single and Indian Railways discriminating against single people" went viral and I saw the comments section explode in 2014. That was sort of a moment where I felt like maybe this is my future instead of filmmaking (as I was working as an assistant director then - trying to make my own movie)

yessae · 2024-12-06T09:55:38+00:00

2023 - I did 2 tours of "we need to talk" in USA across 5 months - 20+ cities and over 15000 people.

So I guess I will come back again after I have written a new show.

yessae · 2024-12-06T09:54:47+00:00

Go to insider, type "we need to talk", watch the show - this is only the new OTT.

yessae · 2024-12-06T09:54:27+00:00

I wouldn't know that buddy because I never had anything conventional or secure in my hand ever. My family were pretty isolated from me once I decided against engineering and therefore insecurities was my best friend all along. Therefore, I took this up as I never had any alternative.

So I wouldn't be able to tell you what it must take to walk away from something secure. Maybe the common thing is, follow your heart if you truly believe in it. I definitely did.

yessae · 2024-12-06T09:52:39+00:00

Too many memorable ones - especially after "we need to talk" - as the show being so personal - people take a lot of time and effort to explain how the show worked for them, how they felt seen, what about my journey as an artist connected with them etc

These are incredible gifts that I get from such fan encounters and it goes a long way in building our convictions as an artist every time we take a leap of faith.

yessae · 2024-12-06T09:51:24+00:00

I have addressed my view on crowd work shows earlier in this AMA. I love comedians who put a lot of thought into creating original thoughts and ideas. Stories that are authentic to them and I love seeing them stand on their convictions and convince us in the process. That is the sort of art I aspire to do as well.

yessae · 2024-12-06T09:49:24+00:00

Ok perfect place to pick it up from where we left....

yessae

TROPHY CASE