The next time you get slammed for facebooking incessantly or for being a slave to the gram, snap them with the ‘fam is life’ line. How? The Stupid Man, Smart Phone series gives away many reasons to stay glued to these social media sites, your followings and followers.

When Sumeet Vyas begins with a  calm and relaxed onset interacting with people and cracking quips and with Evelyn Sharma finding ‘Coimbatore’ a jawbreaker while going live for her fans;  little can anyone grasp what jaw dropping perils and real-life struggles that lie ahead. And you cannot agree more, if I say survival is the ultimate struggle.

The Voot series of Stupid Man, Smart Phone is an Indian incarnation of the British titular show and has definitely whipped some a venturesome watch for adrenaline-junkies. The show is all about outflanking various albatrosses that are a part of the task to be performed. The first show was all about carrying anti-venom all the way to a hamlet and dig for the man who sports a snake tattoo. What’s the big deal you say? Nothing much, you just have to cross a cascade and a forest brimming with deadly insects and what forms your kit and kaboodle is a broken-down car and your smart phone. All you can do is stay connected to social media platforms, the virtual fam and of course internet.

Sumeet Vyas is the host for Season-1 and a companion to all the contenders. It can be concluded that it’s he who has faced all the challenges on a loop and emerges as the hero through all episodes. The Being Indian Youtuber Sahil Khattar had a different challenge to take on. He had to conquer the sand dunes to accomplish his task. That’s our desi Santiago mounting the desert hills, eh? What spikes the intrigue in this episode is their sojourn in an uninhabited village which unfailingly exudes absolute ‘spooky’ feels. (Remember the desolate village from Rajasthan Tourism’s advertorial?)What life lessons they bunch up here is however of no aid; it basically looks like an advertorial for the smart phone and the internet connection.  

While Karan Kundra has always come across as a swaggering adventurer through his hard-bitten demeanor accredits his accomplishment to his virtual fam, his task being to literally surmount the hilly terrains of Andhra Pradesh.  With all said and done, the show brushes an idea how smartphones can be a navigational guide and your little big, real unreal virtual connections can help you survive in any situation.

With Sumeet Vyas as the host, not surprisingly there are periodic comical dabs to the show that don’t go well with the seriousness of the theme. Nor one can find really hard-hitting facts and points on survival except for the fact that from here on believe that your smart phone with a “working connection” is your savior in  any life-threatening circumstance(the latter is equally vital). These goof-ups can be compensated for if there’s a second season in the offing with the first one giving a big room for improvement.

Stupid Man, Smart Phone is now streaming on Voot Originals.