Lifeofpujaa row explained: Pujarini Pradhan hits back at accusations of being industry plant

Pujarini Pradhan has hit back at accusations of being an “industry plant” and a “social media construct” in a video shared this morning. Pujarini is the woman behind the hugely popular ‘@lifeofpujaa’ Instagram account, which has come under public scrutiny over the last few days.Pujarini Pradhan hits back at critics questioning her authenticity (Instagram/@lifeofpujaa)It would be impossible to write about her clarification without going into details of the controversy surrounding her and her Instagram content. Read on for some context on the row.Who is ‘lifeofpujaa’?@lifeofpujaa is an Instagram account run Pujarini Pradhan, a content creator from a rural village in West Bengal. Pujarini has more than 6.7 lakh followers on Instagram, where she shares short videos about daily life, literature, culture, feminism and personal reflections from her household.Her style is noted for being unpolished and ‘rough’, dinct from highly-curated and glossy influencer videos that are popular on Instagram. Most of her videos are filmed inside her simple village house, where stacks of books share space with basic furniture and kitchen utensils.What is the controversy surrounding lifeofpujaa?Earlier this month, several other influencer and social media commentators began publicly questioning Pujarini’s authenticity and background.They suggested possible contradictions between her presented lifestyle and previous photos, insinuating she was being “managed” or scripted. These critiques claimed the Puja might not genuinely be from the modest circumstances she portrays. They also implied that her content was intentionally framed as ‘rural’ to generate engagement.Words like “industry plant” and “social media construct” was bandied about to suggest that Pujarini Pradhan was not operating alone but instead had an entire team to shoot and edit her videos and manage her professional engagements.Pujarini Pradhan hits backPujarini hit back at these accusations, saying she never hid the fact that she was represented an agency. The West Bengal-based content creator gave a short hory of her professional trajectory while hitting back at critics, saying they only wanted to see misery in her videos and had a problem with her airing her opinions.(Also read: Chhattisgarh’s viral ‘YouTube Village’ is turning content into cash and change, one video at a time)“The first agency I worked with was in November. That agency never helped me shoot or edit my videos, that was all me,” she said.Pujarini parted ways with the agency when she realised they were scamming her. She said that the agency paid her ₹60,000 for two videos, out of which she had to give back 20% as commission. She later realised that the agency had been paid ₹2 lakh for the videos, and had managed to shortchange her.“I was getting scammed,” she said. “On 19th January, I pushed out a Reel saying I was doing everything alone, because that was the truth.”“On 27th January, I started working with another agency, which is my current agency. My brand deals became consent after I signed up with this agency. Before this, I never knew that money could come in so consently in this field,” Pujarini added.“They say I’m not authentic”Pujarini said that she never made a secret of being represented an agency. She also pointed out that this agency only handles her brand deals, while she does shooting and editing videos on her own.Addressing her critics, she said: “They questioned my consency and time management, even though I have already talked about my supportive mother-in-law who cooks during the day, and my husband who cooks at night.“They say I am not authentic, but I don’t know how to pretend to be authentic.“They judged me for having hardcover books, even though everyone knows I have an Amazon wishl in my bio, and I often share stories of people gifting me books,” said the content creator.“They laughed at me for learning things like colour grading. Like it’s hard? Anyone can do it,” added Pujarini. “They called me an industry plant. I did not know what an industry plant is until I started researching about it.”“I started making money…”She ended her video saying that a section of the internet has a problem with her voicing her opinions online. “They were fine until I started giving my opinions on feminism and politics. They want to see suffering in every video. They want me to complain about life. They want to see sadness,” she said.“But the moment I started making money from my videos, when I started giving liberal opinions, then they felt like I’m a danger, and they started making conspiracy theories.”Framing the controversy as part of a larger pattern, she said the scrutiny reflects bias against creators from modest backgrounds. “I built this from nothing,” she said, adding that the criticism undermines the effort of individuals trying to grow despite limited resources.(Also read: