Meet Madan Gowri, the most influential South Indian YouTuber and his journey from heartache to more than 6 million subscribers.
Born in the city of Thoothukudi, Tamil Nadu, Madan Gowri is an Indian YouTuber who is all about creating informative content and spreading awareness about social and political issues along with entertaining his viewers.
With a massive following of 6.7 million people on YouTube, he rightfully calls himself South India’s biggest YouTuber. He primarily makes videos in Tamil to target a niche audience, and it’s amazing to see the growth he’s had so far on his channel.
Madan’s videos mainly address ongoing socio-economic and political issues, but his channel also has room for motivational videos and behind the scenes insights into his life. So far on his channel, he’s talked about the 2023 mass layoffs, the Oscars, internet addiction, cricket, Andrew Tate, economic scams, and many such intriguing subjects.
Additionally, his ability to keep the audience engaged and explain complex topics in such a simplified way has monumentally helped him gain the community he has today.
YouTube Journey
The story of what made him start YouTube is way more interesting than you’d think it to be. In 2013, in his final year of graduating from college, he went through a crumbling breakup, and his girlfriend at that time blocked him on every possible social media site ever.
With no means left to contact her, he decided to upload a YouTube video for her to find her way back to him, sort of like an indirect message. Many people were clearly intrigued by the content, and a lot of them commented on it.
Surprisingly, the video gained momentum and a decent amount of views. This encouraged him to continue uploading more videos about things that fascinated him.
Ever since he was a kid, he always had this urge to seek knowledge and speak about different issues and facts that stood out to him. Although he never got a chance to participate in debates, or group discussions as such, he found his perfect outlet in the form of YouTube.
It’s complete madness how one tragic event of weeping your eyes out for the love of your life could lead to you waking up to millions of subscribers in the next few years.
YouTube as a Full-time Career
Right after graduating from college, he did several internships; he worked as a content writer at echoVME, and also as a program analyst at a company called Cognizant.
In 2017, after graduating from the University at Buffalo, New York, with an MS in Marketing, he immediately started working at Zoho Corporation as a Marketing Analyst with a focus on Digital Marketing.
Although he really enjoyed working there, his future had a different goal in mind. Right around 2019, when his YouTube channel had already hit a million subscribers, he quit his job to fully focus on his content. He made it a goal to upload one video per day.
He says, the secret behind his unmatched consistency lies in the unconditional support of his fans who are always anticipating his videos.
While talking about quitting his job, he says, “During my baby steps, I made a promise to myself that I’ll quit my job if I gained a million subscribers. To be honest, I loved my full time job, but I couldn’t do justice to my channel by setting aside a few hours a day”.
Starting Up Kokru App
Adding to his love for perpetual knowledge, he also founded a news app called Kokru, which aims at providing simplified and personalised news to the reader. The news is also summarised in just one line, for all the short-attention-span people out there.
It’s available in 6 regional languages and the news presented is sorted into 12 different categories ranging from business and technology to entertainment and sports.
Furthermore, he isn’t short of a multi-talented person. He has sung a few Tamil songs called ‘Monkeys with 5G’, ‘Bathroom Song’, ‘Ex Lover Song’, and ‘Naan’.
Moreover, he’s also been awarded with the BW Gold Best Digital Content Creator 2020 award along with a Blacksheep Digital Award 2020 in the category of Favourite Vlogger.
Goals and Inspirations
While talking about some of his inspirations, Madan says that he’s deeply influenced by Steve Jobs and that he truly admires the way he started from zero all the way up to the absolute pinnacle of life.
He says that he truly wants to help people around him be the best version of themselves.
