Once upon a time, when a celebrity’s career flatlined, they did the respectable thing: launched a perfume. It smelled like synthetic vanilla, expired relevance, and the last gasps of a fading career. But for today’s modern washed-up stars, podcasts are the last-ditch attempt to milk whatever’s left of their cultural shelf life.
Welcome to the Gutenberg Press for the talentless, where every expired ex-reality show contestant and nepo baby in crisis believes the world needs their two-hour monologue. They swear it’s raw and unfiltered, yet it’s just hours of recycled wisdom and diary entries that belong in their Notes app, not our ears.
If history gave us the town crier, this is his Wifi-enabled descendant with a ring light and sponsorship.
Act I: ‘I feel like people don’t really know the real me’
They think they’re misunderstood. They think they have something to say.
Fame used to be effortless. All you needed was a viral Koffee With Karan rapid fire moment, one pout (Kareena Kapoor, pre-Taimur), or one painfully dumb answer (Alia Bhatt, yes, we still remember ). You didn’t need a lukewarm Spotify deal or a rebranding sob story. Today’s influencers chase depth, but only the kind that sells.
Enter Moment of Silence by Sakshi Shivdasani and Naina Bhan, a podcast so deep, you could drown in its privilege. Sakshi plays podcast guru in an overpriced studio where guests drop wisdom like: “Men who are too emotionally available give me the ick.”
Groundbreaking. The suffragettes would be so proud.
Also read: Nadaaniyan has ruined Bollywood rom-coms for me. A who-can-act-worse contest with no winners
Act II: ‘People took that out of context’
They don’t want to be influencers anymore, they want to be tortured geniuses. Let’s be real. Internet personalities, much like airport bestsellers, are predictable, overhyped, and always one flop away from a rebrand. New trauma, new trend, same exhausting bid for attention. But sometimes, the unnecessary trauma dumping backfires. They say something tone deaf. They insult an entire community. And the internet? Drags them.
And nobody embodies this quite like our “bro let me introduce you to the secrets of the universe” guy – Ranveer Allahbadia, or BeerBiceps. Our self–help swami thinks he’s India’s Joe Rogan. But really, he’s just that guy at every Delhi farmhouse party who did one Vipassana retreat and now believes he’s Osho’s love child.
Cue the apology arc: “I’m just a student of life.”
No, Ranveer. You’re a student of virality, with specialisation in clout engineering.
Also read: Trying too hard is now cringe. Welcome to the era of Bare Minimum, effortless detachment
Act III: ‘I need to take a break for my mental health’
The ego is crumbling. The ads have dried up. They can feel it now, their own irrelevance creeping in like a bad spray tan.
And then, at their lowest, they reach for the most embarrassing collab possible.
Which brings us to Arhaan Khan’s podcast: Dumb Biryani (more like undercooked pulao). The conversations are so excruciating, I’d rather endure IIFA with Abhishek Bachchan hosting—twice, in six–inch heels, on cobblestone. It’s not a podcast, it’s a trust fund hobby, easily the second–worst nepotism venture after Ahan Shetty’s Bollywood career.
Then, at last, ‘the announcement’. The PR–stitched farewell: “This isn’t goodbye, just see you later.” But there is no later. The podcast slips quietly into the graveyard of forgotten celebrity side hustles, buried somewhere between overpriced energy drinks and vegan skincare lines.
It’s a theatrical tragedy, just without the talent.
Views are personal.
(Edited by Aamaan Alam Khan)
