Made by the internet
Not everyone can boast of being an internet sensation but that’s a claim the 18-year-old vegetable seller from Baglung, Gorkha can easily make. After social media made a dreamy blue-eyed Pakistani chai wala shoot to fame overnight across the globe, Kusum Shrestha has become the internet’s new darling.
The Week asked the public about their opinion on the overwhelming attention and media circus surrounding them.
Abha Shrestha
I was well aware about the phenomenon taking place in other countries. You have tumblr, random blogs and such every now and then but I never thought the trend would catch up in Nepal as well. The scale of the post’s popularity was pretty impressive. Then there was coverage of it in a couple of international publications and I found it all to be very amusing. Though I haven’t exactly checked her background or followed her interviews, it’s entertaining to say the least. I imagine the media houses have trouble coming up with sensational news everyday so they naturally jumped on this opportunity.
I’m happy for the person who gained all this publicity. I hope it will help them in their lives. I’m particularly glad that they didn’t get all that many hate comments. If we think about it, it could have gone either way. But the public’s response wasn’t negative. Now if she plays her cards right, who knows there might even be a chance that she can make something substantial for her future from this time in the limelight.
Rahul Thapa
Personally, I didn’t see anything exceptional about the vegetable seller. I guess somebody just wanted to capitalize on the popularity of the Pakistani chaiwala. The timing of it all is certainly suspicious. I think that helped to a great extent. But at the end of the day, all this is for entertainment and we can’t deny that it did manage to hold the nation’s interest, at least for a while. Everybody in my circle has heard of it, though I don’t think people are deeply invested in her story. In many ways, it’s quickly starting to be yesterday’s news. Perhaps the trend will catch on and social media will give us another guy or a girl sometime pretty soon.
Barsha Rimal Ghimire
Dipak Karki
Dr Umesh Nepal
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