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‘A bunch of film enthusiasts who make satirical comedy based on contemporary situations’—that’s how they describe themselves online.

YouTube channel Fun Revolution TV hit 100K subscribers earlier this year, a milestone reached eight years after its establishment. Core members Anish Jung Thapa, Nimesh Shrestha, Isha Thapa and Sanjana Maharjan are now the faces of one of the most entertaining Nepali YouTube channels—a rightful honor after countless night shoots, script rewrites, reshoots and bloopers.

The channel wasn’t always called Fun Revolution TV. In its fetal stage in 2012, they had named it Stambha Entertainment, a channel that inconsistently uploaded skits and comedy videos once in a while. It was only after they met another popular creator, SuperMandip, in 2016 that Anish Jung Thapa and Nimesh Shrestha came up with the channel name that has now garnered more than 11.3 million views. Isha Thapa and Sanjana Maharjan joined them at the end of 2017 and mid-2018, respectively.

Popular for their nuanced Nepali satires, Fun Revolution TV makes all kinds of original content, ranging from comedy skits and short films to serials and mocumentaries. Their videos are built from scratch, with their own members writing scripts, directing, producing, acting, filming and editing. All four members act. The rest of the work is divided among themselves as well.

Isha Thapa

The youngest of the team, Isha Thapa, at 21, has already been in dozens of Fun Revolution TV videos. Currently studying Bachelors in Filmmaking, Thapa sees herself acting and writing for the rest of her life.

“I grew up with films and cameras thanks to my brothers,” Thapa says, referring to her older brothers who also studied filmmaking. “And I’ve always been interested in stories—consuming them on a daily basis through anime and novels.”  Before becoming a core member of this team, she was usually seen on SuperMandip’s channel, acting in his vines.

Besides acting, Thapa is responsible for much of the scriptwriting, and resists from turning anything into content unless she can give it some newness. “We value authenticity,” she tells ApEx.

Sanjana Maharjan

Sanjana Maharjan, 25, met the team behind Fun Revolution TV during their first workshop in 2018.

“I never thought acting or video-making would be something I would do,” Maharjan shares. “But I had just finished my Bachelors in Information Management and was looking to get out of my comfort zone.”

Even before joining the YouTubers, Maharjan was a huge fan of their work. So when the opportunity knocked, she took it without hesitation. Today, she writes scripts and acts in videos for the channel.

“I’ve always been shy and had a hard time speaking in front of people; being a part of this channel has helped me a lot,” she admits.

Also read: Yozana Thapa Magar: Overcoming her nature to make people laugh

Nimesh Shrestha

Shrestha always knew that filmmaking was for him.

“I’ve always wanted to do movies,” Shrestha confesses. “And after finishing my Bachelors in Filmmaking, I started chasing it.” He worked for a few companies as a freelancing cinematographer and cameraman. He too yearned to create something of his own.

Thus he reached out to Anish Jung Thapa, and together, they started the journey. Among the fans, Shrestha is popular for his charm. Over the last few years in which the channel has garnered fans, Shrestha is known as ‘that one guy with the long hair who acts really well’.

Beyond acting, Shrestha also looks after production and business . Between editing and directing the videos, he’s also running a small business with his wife.

Anish Jung Thapa

Co-founder of Fun Revolution TV Anish Jung Thapa—a filmmaker, producer, director, writer and all in all, a man of many talents—is the one leading the channel to its height today.

At 18, Thapa was “sure” about joining the military. But luck would have him pursue filmmaking. He was aware of its limitations—unstable income, late-night/early-morning shoots and so on—yet, he found himself wanting to go on. He began a small company with Shrestha called Stambha Entertainment, which didn’t fare well financially.

After its failure, both Shrestha and Thapa pursued their passion individually—Thapa trying to sell his scripts and Shrestha freelancing. One day, they came across SuperMandip and restarted making videos for their channel. Thapa was reluctant to get back to YouTube after Stambha’s failure, but Shrestha convinced him to give it another try. In 2017, they rebranded their company.

Their growth, slow and steady, was a result of teamwork and perseverance. It took Thapa eight months to write the script of ‘Boka Haru’. But after it blew up, and the channel started getting more recognition, their hard work started paying off.

“I’ve always valued quality and originality over anything else, and I’ve instilled that notion in all my team members,” he says.  

While he is grateful for all the love Fun Revolution TV has gotten, he believes it has a long way to go.

A two-country Himalayan Vegan Festival is being held in April 2022 in Thimpu, Bhutan and Kathmandu, Nepal. The festival organizing committee informed as much during a special vegan buffet held at Utpala Café, Boudha, on September 18.  

The first of the two-part event will be held in Kathmandu from April 15-17, to be followed by the second part in Thimpu from April 18-20.

The goal is to raise awareness about the benefits of a plant-based diet and encourage more people to go vegan. “There are endless reasons one should go vegan,” says Zachary Lovas, general secretary of World Vegan Organization and a member of the organizing team of the Himalayan Vegan Festival. “We want to promote a vegan lifestyle and educate people about the necessity of veganism in today’s world”.

An Oxford University study says adopting a vegan diet can reduce one’s carbon footprint by up to 73 percent. A lot of methane, a gas responsible for climate change and global warming, is produced during the raising of livestock. Then a copious amount of carbon-di-oxide and carbon-mono-oxide, both greenhouse gases, are released in their transport. If we stop eating meat and meat products, a major chunk of food-based air pollutants will be removed from the atmosphere.

Shifting to a plant-based has multiple health benefits and it helps eliminate animal cruelty. “There has always been this debate about whether humans are carnivorous, herbivorous, or omnivorous. Let us put all that aside and just be humans,” Lovas adds. 

Like most of us, Yozana Thapa Magar loves a good stand-up comedy with relatable jokes and familiar references. Growing up, it was by watching those shows and organizing and performing before a live audience that Magar discovered her love for making people laugh.

“But when I was younger, never did I think I would be a comedian,” says the 24-year-old who has performed around 50 to 60 shows since she started in 2017. 

Raised in Damak, Jhapa, she only got to watch popularized western comedy and performances on TV and YouTube. But she enjoyed all kinds of comedy videos, skits, stand-up, and comedy podcasts. At the same time, as a shy and introverted kid, Magar channeled all her feelings to writing, aspiring to be a writer one day. But she thought that one day was distant.

Magar, meanwhile, continued her studies in pharmacology while also working for different pharmacies. After working for three months as a licensed pharmacist she realized that the job didn’t bring her the same joy that the thought of performing live comedy did. 

She discovered many open mic shows during her early days in the capital. She finally decided to attend one event to meet people who also connected to comedy as she did.

Magar had just finished her studies and wanted to use the free time to perform, hoping she would return to the pharmacy industry later. But months turned into a year and she found herself still involved in the comedy scene. That opened doors for her to pursue the career of her dreams—writing.

“Comedy really worked out for me,” says Magar, adding that she doesn’t plan on returning to pharmacology any time soon.

After her first few gigs with Nepgasm and The StoryYellers, she started organizing shows with her friends from ComedyTukTuk, a Kathmandu-based comedy team. “The people I met in this industry get most of the credit for what I am today.”

That year of her life fluttered by. “I was just having so much fun, I didn’t realize I’d grown to become a whole new person who had adapted to a completely different lifestyle”, she says. “I truly felt like myself when the impact of my performances started showing and people started recognizing me on the streets.”

Stepping into a field dominated by men, Magar as well as her female friends struggled to get the same level of attention. Her audiences were generally males and there were times when she felt judged and teased by some men who clearly believed women could never be funny. 

An introvert Magar struggled with stage fright and nervousness that even led her to forget her jokes. But that never stopped her. “Watching people laugh at my jokes makes me want to keep coming back and make them laugh more,” she says. Today, after four years of performing, nervousness and anxiety remain, but she has taught herself to be more composed on stage. 

“I never felt comfortable being talked back to. I’d watched so many women perform and never return to the stage because of the judgment and hate comments they received,” she says. But Magar always found a reason to get back on the stage with the support of her friends and her love for making people laugh. She has also become much better at dealing with uncomfortable situations.

Even Covid-19 couldn’t stop her as she performed around 20 shows even during the second lockdown.

The stand-up comedy culture in Kathmandu was growing and Magar and her friends were organizing shows that were getting larger and larger audiences. But the pandemic put a stop to that. Magar hopes the good ol’ days will soon return.

Magar wants to travel to different countries and perform for people who seek joy in stand-up as much as she does. “To control the whole crowd with what I say is empowering, and I want to keep doing that,” she says. “When people listen to me and laugh at my jokes—nothing makes me happier.”

Ten teens who participated in a month-long filmmaking workshop organized by Kipalaya Productions under Plan International's 'Girls Get Equal' campaign have produced a film each in two weeks after a month of learning the craft. On September 10, the films were screened by the Film Development Board.

The training, titled 'Women Make Films', was supported by Oscar International College and the Film Development Board. The average length of each film was five minutes. The one-month workshop, held from July 19 to August 19, aimed to break stereotypes about women and increase their participation in filmmaking. 

Ashruti Tripathi, Pradhanya Yonjan, Angela Chaudhary, Pushpa Joshi, Purnima Maharjan, Ambika Bhandari, Asmita Lawati, Shreesha Kunwar, Mira Khadka, and Jyoti Belbase participated in the workshop. Trainer Rajan Kathet said the workshop has also helped the teens develop social skills.