Pakistani-born Swedish resident Furqan Shayk is creating a palpable buzz in the viral stratosphere with his purely Pakistani themed videos garnering 559,582 Likes on his Facebook Artist page and with up to 36,045 Likes and 517,609 views on such telling and hilarious videos as 'Desi parents can turn anything into lecture'.
Shayk was born in Lahore and grew up in Karachi before he migrated to Sweden at an early age. Currently the supernova Internet star is studying Automobile Engineering.
He began his online career from a minor page called 'Pakistani Vines' while simultaneously running a page called 'Kick Ass Vines', which at one point grew to have as much as five million Likes.
Speaking of likes, Shayk says he is a huge fan of the new romantic TV serial 'Mera Naam Yousuf' starring Imran Abbas Naqvi and Maya Ali and watches it religiously. Don't be surprised to perhaps see an upcoming spoof of 'Mera Naam Yousuf' by Shayk on a Vine near you!
Vine is Twitter's video app and an online platform where individuals can create and post short looping videos for fun and often for incisive social commentary. Vine's brevity is its USP. The app's staple is a kind of witty skit that tells a story in a heartbeat.
According to Shayk the world's leading Viners Jerome Jarre and King Bach and the ilk use to contact him to promote their pages. Jarre is the fourth most popular Viner on the planet, falling after Grier, King Bach and Brittany Furlan.
Shayk began posting Vines on Daily Vines about different issues speaking in Urdu and made his 153 Facebook friends like the page. After some time he received positive feedback with 5,000 likes after 20 days with many young teens requesting to post their own Vines so as to become an ostensible platform for talent.
Shayk's page has half million fans and has reached 37 million people. Pakistani Vines on his page has 300k Likes while Kick Ass Vines on his fan page has over 500,000 Likes.
"What really annoys me is the lack of a platform for youth in Pakistan. There is no entertainment channel or specific website for youth. All you see is hate and violence on TV. The government banned YouTube but didn't give anything to compensate the youth or social media artists. I believe the media feeds people's mind and is a platform where one can spread one's message. But our government is too immature to understand this. I'm happy and glad to be providing talent platforms like Pakistani Vines. It makes me happy to see newcomers making Vines and I do my level best to support them. I believe Pakistani youth icons should think about supporting new talent. If Shahrukh Khan and Ranveer Singh and others can work with Indian YouTubers why can't we," Shayk said.
