OTT comedy is killing marital bonds and India’s future

Today’s guiding philosophy is “self-care”. Which is fine—until “self-care” becomes “self-only”. We’ve replaced commitment with convenience

- SANJEEV KOTNALA

Forget climate change, forget AI stealing jobs, and forget the businesses that thrive only on PowerPoint slides—the real apocalypse is unfolding under our noses, or more precisely, under our empty bedsheets.

Marriage rates are tanking, baby cries are fading into archival sounds, and humanity's collective dream has shifted from “settle down and build a future” to “travel solo, post reels, and die with great lighting.”

And while we've been busy blaming social media, dating apps, and commitment-phobie millennials, the real silent assassin has been standing right there—holding a mic, making us laugh to death. Ladies and gentlemen, a round of applause for comedy on OTT and social media platforms.

The Population Crisis Is No Joke: Across the world, governments are in a state of panic. Japan is offering dating subsidies, Italy is offering “baby bonuses”, and India is counting on the Kama Sutra to boost its birth rates. But people are refusing to pair up, let alone reproduce. You might think the reasons are economic stress, career obsession, or climate anxiety. Wrong. The real culprit is the global conspiracy of stand-up specials and OTT sitcoms that have turned love, marriage, and babies into punchlines with better comic timing.

Every time you open WhatsApp or scroll through an OTT app, there's another special where some comedian in a hoodie declares that marriage is “a slow death in installments,” parenting is “like living with unpaid interns who cant spell.” Romance is “just an algorithmic illusion.” The audience laughs, nods, and quietly vows to delete Connects and re-download Tinder.