Cooking channel subscribers have crossed 1 million
Famous feat: The team behind the Village Cooking Channel posing with the Diamond Play button.
TFarmers turned YouTube stars who showcased their Chinna Veeramangalam village in Pudukkottai district to an international audience through traditional cooking videos have amassed one million subscribers.
The Village Cooking channel has been awarded a Diamond Play Button by YouTube for its success. The group donated ₹10,000 from their earnings to the Chief Minister’s Public Relief Fund (CMPRF) to help fight against COVID-19.
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“Ellarum vaanga, he always welcomes you!” — this is how an enthusiastic team of six greets viewers with every video on the channel. The group, comprising cousins V. Subramanian, V. Murugesan, V. Ayyanar, G. Tamilselvan and T. Muthumanickam, and led by their grandfather and former chef M. Periyathambi, started the channel as a way to pass the time when they were not engaged in cultivating their farmland.
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“We started this channel to pass the time when we had no work and to supplement our income. All the men in Chinna Veeramangalam can cook and we decided to show it to the world,” said Mr. Subramanian, the team’s in-house cameraman and technical expert.
The team earns around ₹7,000 per month from ad revenue generated by YouTube views. As viewership grew, so did the amount of food cooked in the videos. “We use at least a quarter of the money we earn to buy ingredients and prepare the feast,” Mr. Subramanian said. “We serve food to our friends, relatives and other people in the village,” he added. “In the middle of the lockdown, we started serving food in retirement homes and orphanages,” he said.
The team also attributed its rise in popularity to Congress leader Rahul Gandhi’s visit. “We used to get about 10,000 new subscribers a day. But since Mr. Gandhi’s visit, we have gotten 30,000 to 40,000 new subscribers a day,” Subramanian said.
Village Cooking Channel is the first YouTube channel from Tamil Nadu to have one million subscribers. “We have seen videos of several YouTubers who have a Diamond Play button with their name engraved on it. They will speak several languages but never Tamil. We are proud to hold this distinction and thank the Tamil people for it,” the group said in a video uploaded to the channel.
Periyathambi, better known as thaatha or grandpa, he ripped while holding the Diamond Play button. “It’s amazing that a company from the US is recognizing our efforts in Pudukkottai. I can’t believe that the videos we shot here in our village have reached people all over the world,” he said. “My advice is that we have to believe in our abilities,” he added.
To commemorate this achievement, the team donated ₹10,000 to CMPRF. “We wanted to send it to the chief minister’s office but we got an opportunity to meet him and hand it over to him personally,” they said.
Published – July 6, 2021 0:51 AM IST