The internet makes it easy to build a persona. It also makes it tempting to become someone else when a bigger platform comes calling. That is perhaps the more interesting aspect in the case of Sakshi Jha’s appearance on India’s Got Latent. During the episode, she described herself as a ‘man-hater’ and made provocative remarks about men, marriage and even members of her family. The comments triggered a major backlash and eventually had real-world consequences.But there is one detail that makes the story more complicated. Based on reports following the episode, there is no clear record of her earlier content being built around a sustained ‘man-hater’ theme. Her social media presence until now, with a modest following, is better known for Bhojpuri and Bihar-centric satire, with much of her content making light of the culture, lifestyle and people of Bihar.Even the phrase ‘Patriarchy’s worst nightmare’ in her Instagram bio does not necessarily establish a history of anti-male content. A tagline is not the same as a body of work.So, was the extreme ‘man-hater’ persona a sudden attempt to create a viral moment? That possibility is what makes her performance worth examining. Many criticised the performance, saying that repeatedly mocking an entire gender was not funny and that the jokes relied more on shock value than humour. Others argued that comedy is subjective, and that performers often experiment with provocative material, even when it does not always land. However, the bigger issue was perhaps whether the persona could survive beyond the shock. Ragebait works because outrage attracts attention. People share, react and argue about content they dislike. The algorithm does not always care whether the attention is positive or negative. But a provocative line that works in a short video may not work as a full-length performance. On the show, Sakshi had to sustain the persona in a live conversation. There was no edit to sharpen the joke or caption to provide context. What may have been intended as an extreme, attention-grabbing act was met with zero points from the panel and a similar response from the audience. Samay Raina’s post-show response added another layer to the conversation. He asked people to stop with the backlash and give her a break. He urged men to send her love instead of hate, joking that perhaps receiving so much love from men would eventually make her change her ‘man-hater’ stand. It was a clever way of turning the outrage on its head.But the larger picture is about the risks of creating a persona purely for attention. The internet may reward shock. But the real world does not always stop at views, comments and shares. Sakshi’s case also showed how quickly an online performance can spill into professional life when the creator has a public-facing job. A creator can reinvent themselves for the internet. They can experiment, provoke and push boundaries. But a viral moment is not always a sustainable persona. Because, when the performance ends, the person still has to live with the consequences.
