(by H Prasanna)
Vanitha, who began her career as an actress, has cemented herself as a true maverick of reality TV in Tamil Nadu with her new YouTube channel and (now closed) Insta account. This is decidedly not reality television in terms of production and narrative control. It is a gossip column news story elevated spiritually to reality television by the personality of Vanitha, and the reactions she elicits and sometimes demands. Vanitha’s YouTube channel started off as a cookery show with some make-up tips and her other lifestyle expertise showcased occasionally. It is replete with cheesy clickbait captions, images, and trailers. The show itself, until recently, was mostly done with one shaky handheld camera with limited graphics and cuts, and sometimes featured direct uploads of recorded Insta live sessions. Her style is conversational, without the trappings of the more rigorous cookery shows. She has put this together using experiences from her own fraught history with the media and her appearances on Big Boss and a cookery show.
But I was not there for the cooking, I was there for the full and fierce personality. And oh my, she doesn’t disappoint. The shows are all Vanitha, as they should be: Her relationship with her two daughters, their fierce loyalty, love, banter, and camaraderie, and snippets of her past full of rich, emotional, sometimes tragic, experiences. The devastating circumstances of her personal journey are intertwined with her foray into social media and TV, particularly YouTube. She owns all of her past and with herself at the helm, shows us how she has matured and taken control of life in front of the camera. She picks her fights and targets (only fights when she is attacked), knows her product positioning and audience (constantly interacting with them), and never, ever, lets her guard down. Sure of herself in every opinion and constantly teasing viewers with unnamed celebrity gossip, she is a towering and slightly intimidating presence.
And like much of the best reality shows, the conflicts arising from relationships, especially spousal relationships, are the most engaging. Vanitha herself would not and did not package it as reality TV. After all, the events on which Vanitha comments in all her videos are from her real life, not her production house (not yet, as her brand is building steadily to a more holistic production house). But reality TV viewing itself is akin to being the weird cousins who showed up at the wedding of truth and fiction. We slowly start commenting on the reactions to the events and lose track of why we’re there. It is the experience of a third-party who stumbled upon something everyone was talking about, but no one knew how to define. As Vanitha herself says several times, “there is no Big Boss this season, so people have turned towards my life for community engagement.” A turn of events after her wedding and how Vanitha takes charge fascinatingly binds her life events in this time period and the reactions to it as reality TV. The conflict and conversations that happen with Vanitha outside this YouTube channel turns it into reality TV gold (at par with Keeping up with Kardashians and Real Housewives of Atlanta).
<Spoilers Ahead>
I am only giving a broad overview of the events because I don’t want to spoil it (Yes, I really do want everyone to watch it chronologically in Vanitha’s channel!). The cookery et al show turns into a celebration of her relationship with none other than the cameraperson (with a nice arc involving her brushing off her viewers whenever they comment asking about him). The lockdown love story culminates into her dream wedding (where she finally gets to wear a white dress). Her partner, the cameraperson, is separated, but not divorced, from a previous marriage. His separated wife goes on camera and to the police station to get him back for their son and daughter. The seperated wife story gains traction with some celebrity support on social media. Vanitha launches into a campaign to regain control of her privacy and personal life with an-hour-and-half long tirade (“Are you a journalist? Why should I answer your questions?” Vanitha asks) in which she barely lets the interviewer talk. Enter Lakshmy Ramakrishnan. She has taken the side of the separated wife. Vanitha interviews her partner so that he can say his side of things. After this interview features on Vanitha’s channel, Lakshmy orchestrates an interview with a third-party channel and talks to his separated wife. Now, this third party attempts to interview Vanitha and Lakshmy, in which Vanitha ambushes Lakshmy in an absolutely unapologetic expletive-laden attack. As of this writing, Vanitha is happily married, living with her partner and two daughters. She continues to make videos out of her house to post on her YouTube channel with more than 500,000 followers.
<End of spoilers>
The narrative of this fallout from her personal life is anchored and controlled brilliantly by Vanitha’s expert understanding of her own brand, its relationship to her audiences, and the weaknesses of the third-party channels. For some context, take the Karan Johar reality dating show and Indian Matchmaking in Netflix, which are unengaging and underwhelming. The conflicts aren’t nearly as interesting or “characters” as inspired. The reality stars are not allowed to be nearly as brave, or bring themselves out so fully with everything they do, as Vanitha.
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCTidN7Gwqm3Bue8WaNXx0Ew
Reality shows need strongly opinionated people whose superficiality is amusing and depth of character mostly confusing. The bite of the reality show crescendoes with the big ugly fight: The day the dam breaks and people say things they don’t want to and don’t know how to. Great reality stars make you feel it. The attacker’s rage is burning into your head when the helplessness of the victim is at the pit of your stomach. All the while you are thinking the attacker has a point and the victim is not blameless. And you’re thinking all this is amped up behind the screens and both parties know they don’t mean what they are saying. Even if they do, they are performing for us, who fully understand this and want them to be as amusing, confusing, loud, and full of themselves as they can be. Vanitha’s story could be packaged as reality TV for millions by Netflix or some other platform. I only hope Vanitha’s pioneering efforts in this regard flourish into so much more for herself and packaging of reality shows in India. The participants of reality shows fuel the engaging conflict with their personal lives as the underlying asset which the production houses leverage. It is high time that they receive bulk of the credit and rewards for their efforts.
Baradwaj Rangan 
Karthik
July 22, 2020
Prasanna– I’m not really tuned in to the reality shows (on TV or the web) and havent kept up with the recent events surrounding Vanitha Vijaykumar, but I really enjoyed reading your writeup. Despite making clear your positive opinion about the show (and showmaker), the piece itself was quite non judgemental. Especially liked this
Reality shows need strongly opinionated people whose superficiality is amusing and depth of character mostly confusing.
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Anu Warrier
July 22, 2020
Echoing Karthik here; not a great fan of realty shows, but enjoyed your write up about a person whom I would have to Google to know. 🙂 This was as objective a piece as one can wish for, and yet, your affection (?) for the show comes through. Kudos.
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blueberry
July 22, 2020
Reblogged this on Genderally Cinema and commented:
Reality television may want to feed off our misogyny, but here is a fresh take.
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H. Prasanna
July 22, 2020
Thank you, Karthik. I was new to reality TV as well, until last month. Well, that is, if you don’t consider all the WWE I watched and thoroughly enjoyed as a kid. The disillusionment that later came with the realisation that WWE was scripted (but many body blows weren’t) spurred me to introspect the emotions that come with watching reality TV.
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H. Prasanna
July 22, 2020
Thank you Anu. Vanitha’s channel was not intended as a “real” reality TV show, but much of reality TV is recreating “reality”, mostly focusing on conflicts. All of it is performance of a story: Quite simply at its heart, Vanitha’s is a story of a hero who overcomes hardships and beats up villains to find happiness at the end. To varying degrees, all involved understand they are performing. What I admired was how Vanitha internalises her brand, consistently showcases it, and redefines and resolves her conflicts on camera, mostly live. Although she performs veiled attacks and holds confirmation biases, it is definitely “her” story she recreates for TV, which is what works for me.
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vivaciously_yours
July 23, 2020
@H. Prasanna, Lovely write up! I am not into reality shows, not am I following the events around Vanitha, but it was a very interesting read😀 and might I add, impressively objective!
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Jallikattu lover
July 23, 2020
This Vanitha Vijaykumar- Lakshmi Ramki video solved my depression.
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H. Prasanna
July 23, 2020
Thank you @vivaciously_yours
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chvs Chaitanya
July 23, 2020
“I only hope Vanitha’s pioneering efforts in this regard flourish into so much more for herself and packaging of reality shows in India, It is high time that they receive bulk of the credit and rewards for their efforts.”
WOWW…now scolding others, having illegal affairs, hypocrisy, using foul language, insulting our own family members before media and public, etc etc became a pioneering effort, an effort to build their brand and deserves some credit!!!!. we should appreciate their effort and wish them ‘ALL THE BEST, YOU DESERVE MORE CREDIT, Next time please involve your children more in this, it will add more fuel and will become more interesting’.. .What an encouraging article
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H. Prasanna
July 23, 2020
@chvs Chaitanya All of that you said regarding Vanitha would qualify as judgements regarding how she lives her life and chooses to raise her children (irrespective of whether there was an affair, I don’t think affairs are illegal). Much of the information you used to make those judgments, I presume, must have been from third-party accounts and some from her own channel and not your personal involvement in her life. You built a narrative based on patterns you recognized in that information, analysed it, and arrived at what you think is/is not credit-worthy and pioneering.
Now, imagine creating a brand of yourself based on this thought process. You start a social media channel, consistently analyse how others (mostly celebrities) live their lives based on your personal beliefs and information from third parties, find an audience who share these beliefs, build a revenue model, and create sustained audience engagement.
Like Vanitha, you would deserve much of the rewards for it (more than you would get from a production house). But, it would not be a pioneering effort because there are already many social media personalities/channels commenting on how people, especially celebrities, live their lives. Vanitha’s efforts are pioneering because she chooses to build her brand about her own story. This way she is putting herself out there for judgment by third parties, while giving us a fascinating insight into her world.
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chvs Chaitanya
July 24, 2020
@H Prasanna, First thing, lot of people are misunderstanding the judgement of supreme court regarding the extra marital affairs, court is not approving an extra marital affair. There is no need to assume things to judge vanitha, everything is there open in the form of videos(i am talking about the videos where she is present). It seems your understanding of vanitha’s actions(you imagined her as hero overcoming hardships and finding happiness) is based on the presumption that every body here is performing and she is recreating for the TV. Lets assume that she is recreating everything for TV and her youtube channel, there are so many people like rakhi sawanth, sri reddy, swathi naidu, poonam pandey etc etc who are doing this so called ‘being themselves, putting themselves out’ for years, she is not a pioneer to use people’s interest in masala things for quick bucks. There is a difference between encouraging a flawed character and encouraging a film with flawed character, Just for our entertainment, are we going to a level of encouraging veil attacks, foul mouthing people who disagree with us, affair with married man, two wife theory and appreciate the people who are doing this by saying ‘they are putting themselves out, giving fascinating insight into their world’. What more credit are you expecting to them and for their so called effort ??. Is being rude to other people is an effort worthwile to encourage and give credit??
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chvs Chaitanya
July 24, 2020
@h prasanna.. there is a difference between encouraging a film with flawed character and encouraging flawed characters in society so that we can make more films based on them
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H. Prasanna
July 25, 2020
@chvs Chaitanya I don’t think the Supreme Court approves of extra marital affairs, either. But, I don’t think it is illegal as well, and I may be wrong. Yes, you watched all the videos of Vanitha to make a judgement, but she chose to be in most of them and put them out there. I am not saying I never judged her when watching her channel. I most definitely made fun of and disagreed with how she did some things. And I got called out for making misogynistic remarks more than once. Then I chose to focus on the narrative she builds for herself, and that I definitely found to be heroic. It is not all just expletive-laden attacks (“rudeness”); it is mostly just her working through her life and a part of it is how she deals with conflicts. And if all the other celebrities you mentioned have channels in which they take control of their narratives and build stories around themselves like this, then they are all pioneers too because this is a trend that is just starting with the ubiquity of personal broadcasting. The trend is that of telling your own story, with greater creative control and space to explore the medium (like independent films), instead of letting a media outlet or production house tell your story. I am not encouraging it so that we can make more films about flawed characters in society; I am encouraging this because I think this is an exciting and personal form of storytelling like films.
So, why do you think Vanitha’s personal storytelling doesn’t deserve to be taken as seriously as film storytelling?
And why do you think watching Vanitha Vijaykumar’s YouTube channel is more hurtful to society than watching films, reading news, or reading a biography that has, say, violence, criminality, and profanity?
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H. Prasanna
July 25, 2020
More than all this, I believe there is a part of the storytelling in films that is just writers and actors working through their personal flaws and experiences. I feel this type of reality TV is closer to the writer/actor coming right out and performing those experiences for camera instead of writing it as a story for the screen. I will give you another scenario. It has been forever alluded to that VTV is based on GVM’s personal experiences. Imagine how radical it would have been if the real Jessie and GVM had a Zoom chat and that conversation was Karthik Dial Seitha Yenn. Maybe he is a writer first and used his personal experiences to write the story, rather than use his writing to understand/work through his personal experiences. But, once you start writing, you can’t split the two and really say which is what precisely. Isn’t that true for all personal storytelling?
PS: Maybe I romanticize, reduce, and indulge this notion too much. But, thank you for this conversation. This is what I was hoping to explore when I wrote the article.
PPS: That GVM conversation would have been extra marital.
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brangan
July 25, 2020
Prasanna: I think you’re going to be proved right with this piece. I don’t care for reality TV, but I found your analysis of what makes for a good reality-TV star fascinating.
I don’t follow Vanitha’s videos, but I keep checking up the views her interviews and “bites” rack up. Man, that’s some following.
It’s good to know what people are watching/interested in.
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blueberry
July 25, 2020
Prasanna, write more, write often.
Most reality entertainment is confusing and liberating for one reason– it uses our deepest misogyny to help us ‘cringe watch’ pieces that would normally seem to be none of our business. The market for this entertainment has been developing over the last ten years in India. However, like so many commercial entertainment pieces, the most juicy, news-worthy bits have been ones that reek of misogyny. Some comments on this piece (and I think I saw some tweets) are evidence of this.
American reality television, especially Keeping up with the Kardashians, allowed for a journey for the viewer (and the participants!) from hating the Kardashians for being women, to hating them for being liberated women, hating them for being liberated women who did not use their liberation for ‘good’, to unpacking their internalised misogyny through the various seasons. It is now, at a point, where each of the stars on that show has earned their fortune, even built a legacy. And what they gave us in return was the opportunity to participate in this journey.
There is a special type of misogyny that makes you angry when women control their narratives. Reality television stars continuously infuriate people who have this. And I think that’s the ‘righteous anger’ that a lot of people are expressing.
Legal issues regarding marriage, custody, child support are all part of this narrative, but the narrative remains Vanitha’s– one that is a worthy contender of being called original reality television.
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brangan
July 25, 2020
Here is one of the strangest comments I got after posting the link on Twitter 🙂
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H. Prasanna
July 25, 2020
@blueberry Thank you for the reblog and the words. I recently came across a news item on an American elected representative harassing his colleague in the nation’s parliament building with members of the press present. The survivor said that the attack was not deeply hurtful because she had worked waiting tables and in bars where this was a part of the “culture,” and she knows it comes from the top. This has become a general requirement in most fields, especially mass media, where women need to be resilient against gender-based harassment in addition to the non-gender-based perpetual open season on mean Twitter. What is considered entertaining and engaging when stories on women are packaged and sold in news and other media is also important. Mostly, they are packaged as a shock to the standards of ethical living in society, an underdog story, or honoring them for overcoming male domination in their field. Just them baking a cake while exploring crazy Twitter theories on their life was good enough for me, and I hope more people see that so that fights don’t become a reality TV standard for conflict in future.
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H. Prasanna
July 25, 2020
@BR Thank you for sharing the link on Twitter. And thank you for receiving many of the mean tweets meant for me via proxy 🙂 I am not on Twitter, and this was my first taste of it; and I am not as “fed” up as I imagined I would be.
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H. Prasanna
July 25, 2020
Thank you, @BR. Yes, reality TV stars are definitely here to stay with a clear-cut revenue model, an easy production and distribution set up, and audience engagement across platforms.
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vijay
July 27, 2020
Only in Tamilnadu can we find an astounding number of idiots following megaserials, Big Boss, Vanitha Vijayakumar’s personal screwups etc etc. with religious diligence
and you wonder where we get the sort of politicians we do get every 5 years
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H. Prasanna
July 27, 2020
@Vijay It is definitely a worldwide phenomenon. The world’s most powerful man is a reality TV star 🙂
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Aman Basha
July 27, 2020
When was Vladamir Putin a reality TV star??
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chvs Chaitanya
July 27, 2020
@h prasanna
Disclaimer to the people who are going to read my comment: my vocabulary is very poor, so i may explain few things in big sentences instead of using the exact word for it.
“So, why do you think Vanitha’s personal storytelling doesn’t deserve to be taken as seriously as film storytelling?
And why do you think watching Vanitha Vijaykumar’s YouTube channel is more hurtful to society than watching films, reading news, or reading a biography that has, say violence, criminality?”
The success of vanitha vijayakumar channel(success in terms of money) is actually hurtful and a bad example to the society than watching a film with violence and criminality, i am not talking about culture or trying to do moral policing here, i will explain what i meant by bad example later. I am fine with the likes of poonam pandey who are using their body and earning money, its her body and she has all the rights to earn money by showing it to others, she is not causing any problem to others directly, if any person is getting offended by her act(even if it her father), if he does not like nudity then it is that person’s problem.
Now i will come to vanitha(and the likes of sri reddy and meera mithun), here their so called brand building, personal story telling, heroism, bla bla is happening by bringing so many families to the streets and by bullying others(i am talking about recent events). Here comes the difference between film story telling and personal story telling, in film all characters are fictional when one character is bullying other or having an affair with other or doing some violence, nobody gets hurt in real since it is a film and all are acting, but when vanitha is being rude to others or posting some pic and celebrating their extra marital relationship, it is effecting the real people(they are not fictional characters like in the film), it is equal to harassing the original wife’s family, harassing others who disagree with her by calling names and using foul language. Now whether any person is getting influenced by violence in cinema/books or vanitha is the not my concern or the point, but i believe the amount of influence will be more in vanitha’s case as it is happening in real, she is earning good money and there is a proof for the people who has same mindset like vanitha that if we do same things, we can also become popular and earn quick bucks and in that process they also harass many others.
Now you may say to me “It is not all just expletive-laden attacks (“rudeness”)”, Vanitha’s so called brand is built on expletive-laden attacks (“rudeness”) and harassing others.
It is all fine to have our own platform to tell our stories instead of letting a production house to tell our story, this space gave so much benefit to so many house wives/travellers/food bloggers who are doing vlogging daily and using the platform creatively, but the channels in the likes of vanitha harass others and try to get some mileage from that harassment for themselves. It is not right to see them in just entertainment perspective and encourage them.
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chvs Chaitanya
July 27, 2020
@h prasanna,
In my previous comment what i meant by this is
“Here comes the difference between film story telling and personal story telling, in film all characters are fictional when one character is bullying other or having an affair with other or doing some violence, nobody gets hurt in real since it is a film and all are acting”
When karthik slaps jessie in VTV, it wont hurt Trisha, because Trisha is acting.
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Anu Warrier
July 27, 2020
The world’s most powerful man is a reality TV star 🙂
Please don’t remind me??
@Aman – Chortle Good one!
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H. Prasanna
July 27, 2020
@chvs Chaitanya You are right! Harrassment is wrong and should not be encouraged in any form in any media. I apologize I wasn’t clear about it and I don’t encourage any harrassment. (You are communicating your ideas very well; I can understand everything you say.) But, just because its in a movie set and they are acting, it doesn’t mean harrassment cannot happen (there are many people who spoke out recently about harrassment in cinema on screen). The nature of harassment is such that only the survivor can say whether they are harrassed or not. So, as an audience we operate under the social contract of good faith that no one has been harassed while the film is made (just like the animal abuse disclaimer). I am asking why can’t we watch reality TV under the same good faith as we watch films?
Second, the “staged” and the “real” aspects of Vanitha’s channel and what happened outside it are what I wanted to examine in my article. Essentially because of its form, we don’t know how much is real and how much is staged in reality TV. It is not like Vanitha is the only one name-calling others, and I am not saying that it is not harassment if everyone does it, I am saying it proves each one understands their “part” to some extent and is performing/acting. Each person is fighting for what they think is right, and they memorize a clear, usually unchanged, narrative of how things unfolded before they go on camera. This changes the purpose of being on TV to audience engagement, much like in cinema, than telling a true story. This makes Vanitha’s and the rest of the narrative very close to that of a reality TV show. If we don’t know what or how much is the truth, how can judge the destruction of families or harassment taking place?
And I would very much like to see reality TV and cinema without harassment or rudeness. But unfortunately, it took years of fighting for rights by women and marginalized communities to get some people to even acknowledge there is a problem of harassment. And it won’t go away anytime soon. Part of the solution is to support women who take control of the narrative, even though it may be difficult for us to see their story past the rudeness of their actions. And that is what I urge you to do, see her perspective of her life even though we think it may be wrong. You will see the lines of good and bad are not so clear. From Vanitha’s channel’s perspective, it is a story of creating a family with people they love not destruction of families and surviving harassment more than inflicting it. Seeing Vanitha’s perspective is very important because, operating under so much uncertainty, we have to see every side of the story. Seeing Vanitha’s channel is interesting because she does not hold back and is constantly engaging.
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brangan
July 28, 2020
chvs Chaitanya: It is not right to see them in just entertainment perspective and encourage them.
I am a little puzzled by this statement. Isn’t this what ‘reality TV’ is? Whether in the US or UK or here, it’s real-life people behaving badly (if you will), and we gawk at them like we’d gawk at animals in a zoo.
I think there is as much “distance” here as there is in cinema.
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chvs Chaitanya
July 28, 2020
@H prasanna…
“But, just because its in a movie set and they are acting, it doesn’t mean harrassment cannot happen (there are many people who spoke out recently about harrassment in cinema on screen). The nature of harassment is such that only the survivor can say whether they are harrassed or not. So, as an audience we operate under the social contract of good faith that no one has been harassed while the film is made (just like the animal abuse disclaimer). I am asking why can’t we watch reality TV under the same good faith as we watch films?”
You misunderstood what i said about harassment..i wish i can explain my thoughts in my mother tongue, anyway i will give a one more try…
i am talking about the violence/harrasment happening on screen not about the harrasment that might be happening behind screens. when karthik is slapping jessi, its not simbu slapping trisha…so in reality nobody is getting hurt from the slap, whereas in the case of reality TV/personal story telling, every rude action of vanitha in her youtube channel will hurt the receiver of that rudeness, now here we should not think about how much is truth/staged here…because there is no disclaimer and nobody involved in the events said they are acting, our decisions should be on the assumption that everything is happening in real and true.
“You are right! Harrassment is wrong and should not be encouraged in any form in any media. I apologize I wasn’t clear about it and I don’t encourage any harrassment.”
When you are encouraging Vanitha and her effort, and hoping that her effort should flourish into so much more to herself, my whole point of commenting on your article is to explain that the harassment is also part of her effort. it is not right to just see the entertainment angle or the effort angle in this vanitha’s case, the bead rock of her brand is her rudeness and harassment(like harassing lakshmy for disagreeing with her). I agree that Strongly opinionated people make reality TV interesting, So called Villis/villains make reality show interesting and makes the show more entertaining, but encouraging villis/villains, just because they make a show more entertaining has the risk of encouraging them to hurt others by their actions. I feel your article missed this risk part. I guess i am sounding repetitive here…but the above eight lines sums up my opinion.
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chvs Chaitanya
July 28, 2020
@brangan: i agree that the distance is same for the viewer, but my concern is not about the viewer…
i have explained it in my reply to prasanna
“when karthik is slapping jessi, its not simbu slapping trisha…so in reality nobody is getting hurt from the slap, whereas in the case of reality TV/personal story telling, every rude action of vanitha in her youtube channel will hurt the receiver of that rudeness”.
what i meant by receiver here is not the viewer of the youtube channel, the receiver here is the family of vanitha’s boy friend, lakshmy ramakrishnan, etc etc
So, when we encourage a person who behaves badly and wish more credit for them because they make the reality show more interesting, we are also encouraging his bad actions which will effect the receiver of the action(here receiver is the another participant in the reality show who is getting harrased by vanitha).
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H. Prasanna
July 28, 2020
@chvs Chaitanya The whole idea behind my article is to show that we can see these set of events in a different context, as a reality TV show where Vanitha’s fight is part of a greater narrative designed by her before she even knows there may be a fight. Her channel started way before the fight and will go on after it. Majority of us only see and talk about the fights because it is commented on and reported on widely. All participants of a reality TV show, just like participants in a movie, understand what they are getting into at some level. Many of the people you mentioned are participants by choice.
But, your point is entirely valid. Even though they know what they are getting into, they can be harassed. I completely agree that it is a grey area and people who are not part of this also are open to harassment in reality TV shows. The danger is real for both the main reality TV star and the participants. But, that is just as much possible in movies where they also attack real people. Harassment has happened on camera for movies for many years. One participant in a film has harassed another participant in a film for a film on camera many times. We have seen the end result as a film without acknowledging or knowing there was harassment. We just choose to believe that it is all acting because of an implicit social contract of good faith.
It is really admirable that you don’t want to encourage or be a part of anything that is this close to harassment of real people. And you are brave to speak out about it. Unfortunately, harassment is not isolated, it is part of a culture. Just like every other place, artists in the film/TV industry have a history with it, both behind and on camera. To move forward, we have to acknowledge harassment and examine how it affects people and becomes a part of their narrative to do something about it.
If you want to ask why and how this harassment has become a culture, the best place to start is Vanitha Vijaykumar, because she is one of the few who talks about it. I can assure you there is no harassment except for the fights, which you have already seen. Find out her story and all she has been through, the issues she talks about, and how she says it on camera. I don’t agree that harassment is the bedrock of Vanitha’s brand, but she comes with the grey areas just like most/all artists we encourage. I feel her channel has good storytelling without the fights and I encourage her for the fact that the narrative belongs to her. After you watch her narrative and are willing to see and talk about her part of the story in this reality TV show, we will continue this conversation. Until then, or if you think your opinion in this matter cannot be changed, we can agree to disagree.
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