The Dark Side of Influence

Viral videos and a sizeable follower count don't just bring fame and money for content creators, sometimes they also bring threats, abuse, court cases, loss of brand deals, and take a mental toll

- By SAMIDHA JAIN & KUNAL PURANDARE

Prableen Kaur Bhomrah was shocked when she heard about Kanchan Kumari's murder in Punjab in June.

Bhomrah, a skin and body positivity influencer with 565,000 followers on Instagram, immediately decided to be mindful and cautious about what she posts. “I still believe in being vulnerable and real, but now I set boundaries—both digitally and personally. That incident was a stark wake-up call,” she tells Forbes India. Kumari, a social media influencer popularly known as Kamal Kaur, was found dead on the back seat of a car parked at Adesh Medical University in Bhatinda. The postmortem revealed that the 30-year-old was strangled and had suspicious marks on her body. Kumari, who posted vlogs, lifestyle and adult content on Instagram, where she had over 3,85,000 followers, and on YouTube (as Kamal Kaur Bhabhi), was earlier threatened by a Canada-based gangster with dire consequences if she continued posting “objectionable videos”.

A radical leader from a group called Kaum De Rakhe (protectors of the community) claimed responsibility for Kumari’s murder and posted on social media that despite belonging to a non-Sikh family, she was using a Sikh name to create “immoral content”. Two Nihangs—a warrior order within Sikhism—have been arrested in connection with the crime. The incident not only sent shockwaves through the creator community, but also brought to the fore the dark side of being an influencer. Behind the followers, fame, attention, adulation and brand deals is also a harsh reality that content creators deal with: Abuse, threats, mental and emotional turmoil, loss of contracts, pressure, insecurity, and in some cases, like Kumari’s, loss of life.

Four months prior to Kumari’s murder, Ranveer Allahbadia, known as BeerBiceps, found himself in the eye of a storm for an inappropriate comment he made on the