Rafayat Rakib, a name that we all are well familiar with, didn’t get where he is today. His love for video content and gadgets started very early on in his life. He was always fascinated by video cameras and how they work.
At a very young age, when he got his first camera as a gift from his father, his joy knew no boundaries. Recalling those days, Rafayat said, “ A small film reel that looks like a simple paper from the outside can capture our moments, and we can cherish them forever, this concept always used to fascinate me. I was also drawn towards how these things work”.
His journey with Facebook content started in 2008. The following year, he started his YouTube channel. His page started with just one video and now has become a source of entertainment for many fans. Beginning at a time when technology was not at its peak, the journey of ShowOffs Dhk wasn’t an easy one. Speaking about his maiden year, he said, “Few of us YouTubers started our journey around the same time who are doing really well now. I must name Salman Muqtadir, Bhai Brothers LTD, The Mango Squad, Tahseenation, who are big names now. We started when wifi, Youtube, was just being introduced to the people of Bangladesh. So it’s inevitable that we did have to struggle a bit more than what the current generation has to go through”.
The roaster started his channel with 11-seconds horror videos with his cousins. “We were not too familiar with editing and didn’t know much about it. So we rather focused on one short take videos”. After the initial start, when the channel was at pause for awhile, Rafayat realised he couldn’t let everyone’s hard work go in vain. “I wasn’t the only one working behind those videos that we have posted. So I knew I have to keep pushing more and more content for that channel,” he said.
Being the class clown, Rafayat always enjoyed bringing a smile on people’s faces. “I am not the type to take life too seriously. I want to enjoy life and make people smile”, he explained.
Using his wit and humour, he started his YouTube journey, and his video ideas were revolving around funny and entertaining content. Slowly using his wit, his material began to shift towards the satirist-commentary genre.
When asked why he chose to go this route, he said, “To be honest, the people of our country don’t enjoy too serious content. So if you want to put across a point which might be a little serious, people might not enjoy it or even watch it. So using satire and humour is the best weapon in this case.”
Famous for his roasting, Rafayat has a different take on roasting contents. He believes that often people think roast videos are made to laugh at others or badmouth otters. But that’s not the case at all. He claims that “I don’t just randomly pick a video and start roasting them. When I find content that I know is public property and needs to be addressed, I choose to make content out of it. There is no intention of attacking anyone’s content.”
Many people also assume that ShowOffs Dhk only picks on people who aren’t prominent content creators. However, he disagrees with that. There were many incidents where the content creator addressed many situations that involved many other famous content creators. Clearing the allegations, he says, “I don’t pick people, I pick topics. I want to cover the contents that my audience wants to know about. For instance, I did talk about prominent YouTubers when they were dealing with a lot of controversies. So it doesn’t matter how big or small the creator is, if I feel the need to make a video on it, I will.”
A conversation with a content creator isn’t complete without discussing hate comments. Just like all other content creators, Rafayat also has dealt with his fair share of criticism. Recently one of his content received a lot of criticism. It went so far that he even began getting death threats. “It was a video regarding the recent football league game. It should have been taken with a light heart. But things took a weird turn when the league fans started attacking me, my family. I even received death threats. These sorts of incidents demotivate a content creator.” said the roaster while sharing his experience with hate comments.
Rafayat also had a lot to say about the cancel-culture that has been surfing around the internet for a while now. If you are not too familiar with the idea of cancel-culture, the content creator has explained it entirely for you. “It has started within the past five years, and the idea of cancelling someone has become polarising topics of debate. A celebrity or other public figure does or says something offensive which causes a public backlash, often fueled by politically progressive social media, ensues. Then come the calls to cancel the person — that is, to end their career or revoke their community effectively. This culture does nothing but tries to pull other people down.”
Amidst everything that has been going around, Rafayat still chooses to be positive and keep working on his content as this pandemic has taught him how fragile life
can be!