I am in Toronto this summer to explore the community of Punjabi-Sikh YouTube comedians in the Greater Toronto Area (GTA), focusing on JusReign, AKakaAMAZING, and Lilly Singh: Superwoman. These three have become household names among the Punjabi community in South Ontario for their hilarious and remarkably relatable videos that spoof brown culture in North America. A common theme among the three are “Desi parents and ____” videos, where they impersonate caricatured versions of brown parents. As a half-Punjabi myself, these scenarios ring true in my own life — if not directly from my wonderful Indian mother, than through her side of the family. This includes ambiguous, terrifying commands to fetch something from some other room (baharo/outside, odhoro/over there, othe/there), and random rhyming of words: clock-clook, lease-loos, and so on. These three Punjabis have attracted massive followings on YouTube; Superwoman, for example, has over 3 million subscribers, and she posts videos every Monday and Thursday.

I approach this project with these basic questions: How do these YouTube celebrities imagine and cater to their community of followers? Do they view themselves as representatives of brown and, by extension, Punjabi-Sikh culture? What is the basic message they hope to spread to their audience, brown and beyond?

I close this introduction with the video that turned me on to this community years ago, “Desi Parents are CRAZY” by JusReign.