Sharjah: More than 300 fans from across the UAE came to watch the popular Indo-Arab YouTubers ‘Jordindian’ stage their debut performance at Sharjah International Book Fair (SIBF) at Expo Centre Sharjah on Thursday night.
The two content creators – Naser, a half Jordanian-half Indian dancer, and Vineeth, a South Indian beat boxer – struck a friendship a decade ago that led to the creation of a sketch comedy and music YouTube channel called Jordindian in 2017, which has 2.51 million subscribers.
Taking questions from the SIBF audience, the duo opened up about their struggles, friendship and creative approach.
Staging their first-ever show in Sharjah, Naser performed a break dance and Vineeth performed beat boxing. Other than football, they said they love food from the world over.
‘Don’t focus on the views’
To answer a question by a teen and an aspiring YouTuber on why the duo had produced just 70 videos in four years, Jordindian replied that while it may seem like bad analytics, good content is important.
“Don’t focus on the views. If the content is good, sooner or later people will come to it. Also using things like key words and meta data will help,” Nasser advised, encouraging the audience to subscribe to the teen’s channel.
The duo reminisced how their families wanted them to take up a ‘stable’, regular job and were sceptical about their plans to pursue content creation on YouTube. The 30-year-olds said they have not experienced writer’s block so far, “but it might not be the same when they hit 50”.
What are children reading these days?
From Harry Potter to Percy Jackson, fantasy and mystery novels continue to rule the shopping list with children at SIBF, organisers said on Friday.
Neha Sabin, a Grade 7 student from Amity Private School Sharjah, has chosen Chris Colfer’s The Land of Stories: The Enchantress Returns. “I like it because it has both mystery and fantasy. There is a twist in the plot which makes it really interesting. I also like Thea Stilton which has mystery and gives information about countries,”Neha said.
Cyril Garg, a Grade 8 student of Delhi Private School Sharjah, has gone for a big haul of Percy Jackson books, Enid Blyton’s Five Findouters and Big Shot, the latest in the Wimpy Kid series.
Samantha Espina, a Grade 3 student who is being home-schooled through the distance learning programme of Lighthouse Christian Academy, USA, has picked up the Dog Man series, the comedic graphic novel of a canine police officer who is part-man part-dog. She finds the story and the graphics interesting. “I also like Mr Men books,” she said.
‘Clash in strange lands’
Cheryl and Carolyn, in Grade 6 and 10 respectively, at GEMS Our Own School, have also gone for fantasy and adventure. Cheryl said she loves adventure books where heroes and villains clash in strange lands. Carolyn has bought Artemis Fowl and The Atlantis Complex as she has read most books in the series. “I was excited to see it here and wanted to finish reading the series,” she said.
SIBF 2021, which runs until November 13, is offering an endless choice of books and genres represented by 1.3 million unique titles that children and young adults have an opportunity to sift through and buy.
