One of the glorious facets of the advent of the internet has been the rise of a peculiar culture. The products of this culture are notable for their immediacy and spontaneity, their sudden bursts and their short life-spans, and their constant interplay between one’s own self and their projected image. The most notable example of this is the ‘YouTube star’ and about a year ago, Pakistan found its very own version: a young man from Sialkot who went by the name of AwaisLovely. Within a short time, Awais became a cult hit among the country’s burgeoning internet population. A measure of his fame – as measured in the parameters of this brave, new world – is that social media networks are awash with fake profiles of AwaisLovely; a Twitter user recently carried out an elaborate hoax before confessing rather remorsefully that he was in fact, a fake.

So who is AwaisLovely? For his critics, he is an attention-hungry, narcissistic dim-wit who speaks funny and has bad taste. For those of us free from the shackles of cynicism, he is a folk hero. I had a chance to catch up with the man himself via a phone interview. Please note that the conversation was in both Urdu and English. I have tried to translate the conversation as faithfully as possible to Awais’s own style and thoughts.

AwaisLovely on himself: I’ll tell you something that since a long time ago I mean, guys and people are telling me that ‘Awais, you are really different and you seems to be a very, very romantic guy so you can do something special in the world yeah,’ so I’ve been feeling as well right? So that is why I started making videos to introduce me like I am a lovely guy you know…And I’ve been so romantic with the girls as well, people telling me in my school in my college as well.

[The YouTube videos] are my hobby. If you meet me in reality, you will see I am a different Awais. Mashallah, you will see a lot of things in me. That is because on YouTube, I cannot show my eye contact, my emotions, I cannot make you feel everything about me. But if I am in front of you, when you can practically see everything, feel everything then you will know me well. But I can challenge this, that Inshallah the boy you see on YouTube, the real Awais can be ever better than that.