Karachi Vynz Exclusive Interview With AwamiWeb

1. Tell us about yourself and team behind Karachi Vynz?
Hello Dear Readers, we are Karachi Vynz and we make funny videos which are roughly based on general stuff going on in Pakistan. Our core team members are Mansoor Qureshi and Daniyal Sheikh, the rest of the cast which make appearance in videos every now and then are Asim Awan, Salman Khan, Shahbaz Khan and Hamza Ahmed. Then there is Azeem Akhter who doesn’t like to stay in the limelight and holds the position of page admin at the moment.

Our journey started in November 2014 when Azeem and Mansoor came up with the idea of the page and few starting videos. Daniyal joined few months later and we did videos which brought us thousands of new fans. We currently have 180K+ likes on our Facebook page and the numbers are growing with every passing day.

2. What was the reason to start Karachi Vynz? Any inspiration?

We started our acting career together well before we created this Facebook Page, the journey roughly started with acting in various (both comedy and serious) plays in Bahria University Dramatics Society which later won us a few awards in different university drama competitions, IBA Youth Festival and Greenwich University to name a few.

The vines culture was brought to Pakistan by a Facebook Page named ‘Pakistan Vines’, they generally did a good work but had videos based mainly in Punjab, we liked their work at first but hated the fact that they totally ignored Karachi (Seriously guys how can you even think of ignoring a city of 2 million people with the most diverse population). We had started our acting career already back then and thought about experimenting with Karachi Vynz. People loved it!

 3. What difficulties you face in starting of your work?

Our parents didn’t approve of it at first, they thought we are wasting our time with this, but with time as they saw the response and feedbacks our work brought, they finally started supporting us and now everyone is content with everything.

 4. Why you have changed your name from “Karachi Vines” to “Karachi Vynz”?

Well, we didn’t know that our “Karachi vines” will go that far, we didn’t take it serious until our “Lahore vs Karachi” video got famous. Then we decided that we should make it huge so we had to make it more legal but the word vines is globally registered by a giant of social media so we couldn’t get the blue mark and we found real difficulties in registration of this brand. So we decided to change the entire name, but facebook asked us to change the spelling and they didn’t let us change the entire name. so it’s Karachi vynz now.

5. Do you people earn from these videos or it is only fulfill your passion?

When we started our journey, neither did we think we would be able to reach that far, nor did we have any plans of seeking monetary benefits from it. It had certainly not been our bread and butter but with time after the responses we got, it evolved into a full time job. Although we haven’t got any monetary benefits from the page so far, but we have been approached by quite a few brands of late and if things go well we will see how bumpy the ride actually is.

 6. Which social media platforms you are using other than Facebook?

Right now we are getting huge response from Facebook. Karachi vynz has no account on twitter, instagram or other social media platforms but yes we will get there in a month or two.

7. Which is your best video till date?

Our work ‘Aoo Bachpan Yaad Kartey Hain’ made many people nostalgic about those golden days of their childhood. Imagine what it did to us when we were compiling its script and working on the video, we re-lived our childhood while working on it. This video is best from the vault So far.

8. How Karachi Vynz is different than other Pakistani Entertainers?

It is a very good question. When we started our videos, we didn’t know our genre specifically but after releasing 45-50 videos we came to know our genre. We are more in current affairs and we follow social trends, we usually focus on our Urdu rather than promoting English. We believe that Urdu is the best language and it has decency and compassion. Pakistan is our identity and we try our best to show the better picture of Pakistan to the entire world, then we represent our city Karachi.[junkie-alert style=”white”] We believe that Karachi suffered a lot due to this political instability and terrorism.  It used to be the queen of South Asia. [/junkie-alert] So we portray the real picture of Karachi other than what is projected by the media. Well, this is the only thing which differentiates us from other entertainers,  but somewhere we all Pakistani entertainers get the same taste.

9. What are the key marketing platforms you are using currently?

The only marketing platforms we are using is Facebook, we have a couple of marketers in our group and they are good at it. So we are doing our home work these days regarding our marketing strategies. At first we need to make some bucks and then we will implement our pending marketing strategies.

 10. Are you using hi-tech cameras/audio devices for your videos?

No we don’t have any Hi-tech cameras or equipment’s, we just have a one Camera ( Cannon 600D) with basic lens and just one Small microphone .

11. What is your view on YouTube blockage in Pakistan and how it is hurting entertainers like you?

Hahaha, can we cry for a while please??  Well, it seriously gives us tears. Yes, yes, yes, it is hurting entertainers. There is no other good alternate of making money. YouTube is a good bread and butter for people like us who give their whole time to these activities but we believe that everything happens for a good reason.

12. How was your experience while working with Zaid Ali?

Zaid Ali is  our good friend, he came to Karachi for a morning show and our video, we had a quality time together, we tried our best to extend his stay for a day or two but he had to leave for Canada. He had heard a lot of negative things about Karachi so yes, he was a bit scared. But he got chill after couple of hangouts with us.He is very much professional and seriously he worked hard to get this fame and love. He deserves it.

13. Who is your competitor in Pakistan?

We don’t compete with anyone, that’s why we are in peace but yeah we compete with ourselves by comparing our previous work with the new one and we try our best to make better videos than the last ones.

14. What is your message for young Pakistanis who are willing to make videos like you?

We don’t have long advices for young Pakistanis, we would advice them to be CONSISTENT with your work and try to defeat your previous video in quality, script, humor and execution. You will witness the good results.

Persistency is the key lads, keep working hard, when you find out what works for you and what doesn’t, making it big will just be a matter of time.

15. Has your work ever been criticized? How did you handle it?

We appreciate constructive criticism, we believe it actually helps us improve and get an insight of what people are expecting from us. We learn more from criticism than praises that we get for our content. People expect quality content from us and when they feel we are below par somewhere they have a right to criticize.

But then there are people who criticize just for the heck of it, we used to come up with explanations and asked them not to take offense off their comments, but we don’t care about them anymore.

I like this quote from the movie Social Networking.

[junkie-alert style=”white”] You don’t get to 500 million friends without making a few enemies [/junkie-alert]