MTV and Popular Culture
Tuesday, September 06, 2005
I spent this past weekend at the national conference of the Network of Indian Professionals. NetIP is a unique group—it is an entirely volunteer run organization that puts on these incredibly robust conferences, where like-minded young Indian professionals can come together, network, socialize, and discuss issues that pertain to culutral identity, business, and India.
I won’t bore you with the details of what all the sessions included, but I was particularly intrigued by the introduction of a new brand—MTV Desi. I spent some time with Nusrat Duranni, the new head of MTV World, and the champion behind MTV Desi. (By the way, “Desi” originally meant “person of Indian origin,” but has now come to be a catchphrase for anything Indian.)
Nusrat is a gaunt, brooding, striking man who bears an uncanny resemblance to a young, sober Bob Dylan. When I first met him, he was fashionably dressed in a dark slim-fitting suit over a red shirt, with a pencil-thin black tie. I sat on a panel with him and the simply stunning Saira Mohan, where we discussed the emergence of the new Desi in popular American culture—the gradual recession of “Habib” as the Indian stereotype.
MTV Desi is an incredibly cool concept for several reasons, but not for those that most young Indians would be interested in. The acceptance of ethnic symbolism in popular culture has always required board platforms that created context for it. Take for example, the yin-yang symbol, or the medeival cross, or the Serpent and sceptre—these are all ethnic and religious symobls that have materialized in popular culture, and for periods of time, represented that particular age’s definition of “cool”. Now, with the advent of the Internet, and with a platform and catalyst as broad and powerful as MTV, we can surely see Indian symbols fast becoming part of the mainstream culture.
The trick that Nusrat and his team will have to master is not so much the creation of content; in fact, given that they’re in just about every country around the world, recycling content to create the “MTVization” that ethnic concepts need in order to be accepted by trend-seeking Americans will be easy; instead, the true test will be in their ability to create marketing platforms from which that brand inculcation can happen as rapidly and smoothly as possible. They will need to focus on different but inter-connected elements of brand-building (in my opinion, through the use of popular celebrities) that get trend-followers to start living the “desi” concept in their lives. DJ contests that focus on the best mixes that use MTV Desi music; and perhaps even licensing content to nightclubs so that imagery can start to become part of everyone’s leisure life.
Currently, MTV Desi is only available as part of DirectTV, but I’m hoping that they’ll get their cable deals done soon enough—it’s a fantastic concept, and I for one, am pleased as punch about it.