Indo-Canadian YouTube sensation Lilly Singh, known as “Superwoman” online, is the highest-paid woman on YouTube, raking in $7.5 million last year, according to Forbes, will promote her debut book ‘How to Be a Bawse: A Guide to Conquering Life’ (Ballantine Books), a manifesto on self-confidence and success, which releases on March 28, at 30 stops globally.
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The book is pitched to millennials accustomed to viewing the life through social media. “It’s hard to grow up in a world where you’re constantly seeing everyone’s accomplishments or highlight reels,” she said. “I want to bring this back to, ‘Hey, don’t focus on that picture. Work hard.’ ”
Singh, a 28-year-old Canadian whose Indian mother and father manage a string of gas stations in Toronto, built her name partly through videos spoofing the Punjabi accents and old-world attitudes of her immigrant parents.
Singh’s Los Angeles production company churns out daily videos and bi-weekly scripted pieces that have featured guests from Bill Gates to Selena Gomez. She has created sponsored videos for products such as Coke and Skittles, launched an international tour of her comedy variety show and scored a handful of TV and film credits. Her YouTube videos have been seen more than 2 billion times, reported The Wall Street Journal.
The founder of #GirlLove, a campaign against girl-on-girl hate, manages to slip in giddy self-promotion whether talking about higher education with Michelle Obama or trying to kiss actor Dwayne Johnson. Most of Ms. Singh’s fans are in the U.S., with large followings in the U.K., Canada, India and Australia. She pairs candid commentary—dishing about her pimples, her muffin top, her late-20s virginity—with send-ups of young adulthood in pieces like “Girls On Their Periods,” “Types of Crushes” and “If My Phone Were A Person.”
“My success on YouTube gives me something special, and that is a following,” Singh writes in her book. “When I walk into an audition, the casting agent knows that I bring a very large online audience with me and that my audience is ready to support me in my future projects.”
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“To the adult eye, Singh’s comedy can seem bush league, her sketches occasionally cringe-inducing, her platitudes callow. (“You are going to succeed because the world is waiting for what you have to offer!” she once cheered.) But Singh doesn’t care about adult eyes. She has calibrated every video to appeal to the covetable teen demographic. Between fart jokes, she spouts aphorisms about positivity, empowerment and self-love. She’s as wholesome as Taylor Swift with streetwise chutzpah, a motivational speaker disguised as a comedian. And almost out of nowhere, she has become the reigning avatar of millennial girl power,” reported Toronto Life.
By Premji
