Harinie Weerasinghe, better known by her social media handle @Khannabliss, is best known for successfully creating online content and maintaining an online persona that has garnered a large social media following. In addition to maintaining her day job and successful social media career, she is also a musician, MC (Master of Ceremonies), and occasional model.
In creating online content, in addition to her Instagram page which boasts 14.3k followers as of now, she has also branched out to YouTube videos. Weerasinghe’s YouTube channel, which she first launched in 2018, has since blown up due to the variety of content she has been releasing as of late.
Most recently, a comedy skit about menstruation and the use of pads, titled “When I am ON MY PERIOD (girl things)”, gained considerable attention. The topic in question is a polarising one in Sri Lanka, with there still being a stigma around the open conversation on female sexual and reproductive health.
We reached out to Weerasinghe to speak about her decision to create content around a topic which could have potentially alienated some of her audience, and her plans for the future with regards to YouTube and creating content.
About the exponential growth of her YouTube channel and the assortment of content she has opted to release, ranging from comedy skits to travel vlogs to cover songs, Weerasinghe shared that those are three things she really enjoys making and that at present, her primary goal with the content that she releases is to make herself happy. She said that she films, edits, and uploads the content herself and believes she will continue to do it as long as it remains something she enjoys doing.
Originally starting the channel as a place to share her song covers, Weerasinghe said that when she started travelling around the island quite a lot in 2019, it was suggested to her that she share her experiences via a travel log, and so she combined her two loves – music and travel – and chose to release some videos, which were accompanied by her own cover vocals as soundtracks.
The comedy skits, which are a more recent addition to her repertoire, are also another part of Khannabliss’ channel that make it quite unique; the situations she mimics often tend to be her own observations of society and would more often than not have elements that her largely Sri Lankan audience would most definitely relate to.
About her process when creating these videos, Weerasinghe shared that she would plan it all out, write down all of her ideas, and select a few from a list of 30-40 ideas and expand on them herself. The Khannabliss channel is a one-woman show with Weerasinghe acting, directing, and taking on the roles of cinematographer, cameraman, and editor.
About the content she creates, we asked Weerasinghe if she is under pressure to constantly churn out content, now that her channel has gained a considerable following and whether she feels she has a responsibility to be socially conscious in what she creates and thereby communicate a message through her content. In response, she shared that while she does not feel any such pressure, she has always been someone who has gone with the flow, and so while she may not feel pressure to create such content, she will continue to speak out about topics when she feels it’s necessary.
About the response to her most recent video, she said that she was expecting a 50/50 split, but it’s mostly been positive, which has been encouraging.
Khannabliss’ YouTube channel, which at present has a bit of something for everyone, has only started to pick up steam, and it’s only going to get bigger.
About her future plans for the channel however, Weerasinghe said that she only wants to continue to create the content that she enjoys, and that hopefully people will continue to watch it. She also shared that in the future, we can expect more music from her, hopefully some original songs as well.
YouTube: Khannabliss
