‘YouTube Village’ Goes Viral — How a Simple Idea Changed an Entire Village

The fascinating story of a Bangladeshi village, popularly known as ‘YouTube Village’

Have you ever heard that an entire village works behind a YouTube channel? Yes, an entire village — hundreds of men, women, and children participate in creating content for just one YouTube channel.

It’s a fascinating story of a village named Shimulia in my country, Bangladesh. But the village is not known by its original name anymore. People call it ‘YouTube Village.’ Why?

Let’s know the inspiring story behind it.

AroundMeBD — An Idea Was Born

In 2017, a young man of Shimulia village named Liton Ali created a YouTube channel out of passion. He was then living in Dhaka, had no camera, no editing skills, nothing. Anyway, he wanted to make videos with his mobile camera. So, he started documenting what’s happening around him and uploading them on the channel.

There was no particular topic for the videos. He used to capture the things that made him feel good, including busy fish-markets, roadside stalls selling earthenware, stitching works at a garments factory, fishing in local ponds, local snake charmers, bustling markets, and so on.

Everything that’s happening around and getting his attention, he was capturing and sharing it online. That’s why he named his channel ‘AroundMeBD.’

It was a fun project for him. He didn’t care about views, subscribers, or anything. He was just roaming around, recording videos, and sharing them online. But within a few months, people were getting interested in the videos he uploaded. He was receiving good responses as well.

But Liton became real ambitious when his channel started earning money from YouTube. He planned to do something big — something for his native village Shimulia as he always wanted to help his people.

Liton talked to his uncle Delwar Hossain, who lives in the village, about his plan. He told about his interest in making cooking videos on a large scale for villagers and sharing the entire process online. Needless to say, his uncle loved the idea.

Finally, Liton came to his native village Shimulia and, with his uncle, gathered the villagers for his cooking project. The idea was simple — the food would be cooked by the villagers and for the villagers. They would record the entire process and upload it to his AroundMeBD channel.

The Videos Went Viral

Initially, he and his uncle Delwar Hossain used their savings to run the project. They trained the village people on how to work systematically and document it on camera. Liton established a system there so that they can do the whole process by themselves.

So the game started. Liton made a page on Facebook as well to share the photos and videos. As cooking and distributing foods by a village mob is a rare scene, people started sharing the videos on numerous cooking and food-related pages.

The videos eventually reached millions of people and were appreciated by viewers all across the globe.

Within just two years of initiating the cooking project in 2018, the channel grew exponentially and reached upto 3.25M subscribers. The most popular video got more than 63M views.

So, more money was coming along the way. And the revenue generated from the channel was used to buy the cooking ingredients and paying the village people who work in this endeavor.

Thus, the YouTube channel Liton started for fun has become a good income source for many. Moreover, Liton inspired others to create their own YouTube channels as well.

Shimulia Turned into ‘YouTube Village’

Now, every week they make three to four videos. Men and women dressed in the same cloth do the cutting, washing, and cooking. Many others help to get the job done perfectly. Two videographers carefully record each and every moment. Liton’s uncle coordinates the overall activities. Every three to four days a week, they feed 500–1000 villagers for free.

The foods are never the same. They cook different types of foods, including chicken roast, polao, biriyani, big sea fish, beef tehari, delicious curry, sweetmeats, cake, pithas, bakery items, and more. They also love to do experiments with different traditional and unique foods as well. Everything is done under the open sky.

After the cooking, the food is served right on the spot. Men, women, and children sit on the ground and enjoy a great meal. People who are unable to come to the place get the food delivered by the AroundMeBD team.

When the filming is done, they store the videos into a memory card and send it to Liton’s address in Dhaka. Liton takes care of the editing and uploading part.

Participating in different activities almost every day for the last couple of years, the people of Shimulia know almost everything about video content. They know how to make a great thumbnail, take photos, capture the entire process and make it a delight to watch. Liton taught them everything, and now they do it all by themselves.

AroundMeBD channel and the village Shimulia got featured in the major newspapers and TV channels in the country. Food reviewer Sunny Side of Best Ever Food Review Show even visited Shimulia and made a video content on the village.

In an interview, Liton Ali says, “Shimulia is known by many as YouTube Village now. I began without any plans, but now I am more organized. I am very pleased to generate employment for my people.”

Now, Shimulia is better known as ‘YouTube Village’ across the country. Every day, food lovers from different areas visit the YouTube Village to have a unique experience.

To Conclude

Liton is a software engineer by profession who runs an IT company in Mirpur, Dhaka. But his willingness to do something for his village-people proves to be exemplary. His simple idea changed the mindest of an entire village.

Now, the village people are making their own videos and uploading them on their own YouTube channels to become financially independent. The young ones are growing up by learning new skills that were totally unknown to them even a few years ago.

The grandpas of Shimulia — who were used to working on the fields under the scorching sun — are now making YouTube videos and disseminating their culture to the entire world.

Thank you for reading.

If you are interested to read more of my writings, you may read the following one published in The Masterpiece.