Women in Arts
In another decade, they'd be hunched behind a desk, writing in obscurity. Today, they're front and centric, with their cute little mics, relatable lingo and a touch of girly-pop aesthetic.
Not too long ago, they’d have been navigating a painfully linear, slow path: pitching, waiting, and maybe publishing their journals and articles. Probably the youngest at a desk. Probably the only one asking why things feel the way they do.
But now? They post. They speak. They write in fonts they actually like. They skip the gatekeeping and get straight to the point whether that’s through a reel, a post, a story, or a thread. One of the few things I’ll genuinely be grateful to platforms like Instagram and Twitter (or, fine, X) for.
Because somewhere between the “so here’s something interesting I discovered today” and the final “and I just had to share this,” I felt seen.
Not in the representation-matters kind of way (though that too), but in the “oh god, there are women who like thinking this much about stuff” kind of way.
Here’s my holy trinity in this sub-genre of Instagram creators:
1. Ria Chopra (@riachops)
An LSR English grad who calls herself a writer and thinker (and I will vehemently back her on that). Her bio reads like the syllabus for a course I wish existed: notes on the internet, pop culture, and media through a Gen Z lens. She’s a quiz wizard who’s won over 50 national and state-level quizzes, and recently appeared on the biggest quiz show on Indian soil, Kaun Banega Crorepati. I watched her on TV and probably didn’t blink once through the entire episode.
Something I’ve recently learnt from her is “enshittification” which is basically a term that refers to the gradual decline in quality and value of a product or service, especially online platforms, over time, as companies prioritize profit over user experience. It's a cycle where initial offerings attract users, followed by a shift towards monetization at the users' expense. Ria explains this term via an annoying mail she received from Amazon Prime Video a few days back. Here’s her explaining the contents inside that mail:
She’s written for major publications like The Hindu, Vogue, Indian Express, and more. But what I adore most is how, in one of her recent reels, she critiqued the creator economy from the inside. She rightfully called out event organisers and panel curators who claim “platforms have been democratised” yet only ever invite English-speaking, Tier-1, upper-class, 1% creators to speak.
The rest? Minorities, regional creators, people from less privileged backgrounds, all of whom are building community, thought, and content with far fewer resources, are still waiting for a seat at the table.
That one line from her reel is something I’ve been reiterating in my head:
“I don’t know how you can talk about democratization with a straight face when every person you’ve invited to speak is the same person in different fonts.”
Hits. Hard.
Because it’s true. Most of these events feel like a copy-paste loop of same ideas, same people, same performative “you can do it too” energy that conveniently ignores every systemic hurdle in the way.
They’re apolitical. Sanitized. Risk-averse. And honestly, I’m tired. I spend hours moving from one creator’s Story to another’s post, and her work always cuts through the noise.
2. Anushka Chhikara (@anushcache)
To my disbelief, Bata isn’t an Indian brand. It’s Czech. But it tricked every country into thinking it was local. That’s a kind of marketing sorcery they don’t teach in business school. And the person who delivered that shocking news to me was Anushka.
A graduate in Communication and Media Studies from MAHE (Manipal), Anushka shows up on your feed every now and then, sharing Indian brands and products she’s tried, tested, and documented. She also breaks down major tech and business updates in words that click with her Gen Z Indian audience.
In just six months, she hit 100k. And I can only imagine what it must’ve felt like to meet the CEO of Instagram, Adam Mosseri, and one of my favourite YouTubers ever, Mark Rober, at a recent creator summit.
Her reels feel like crash courses disguised as casual scrolls like the Bata one, or the one where she lists Indian family-run brands like Fevicol’s parent company, Pidilite, with a ₹1.4 lakh crore market cap.
Back in 2022, I used to listen to her podcast Unofficial Sources, where she did something very similar to what she now does on Instagram. She’s proof that fintech and commerce don’t need to be locked behind jargon, and that marketing can be a storytelling tool and not just a smokescreen.
Women like her are making finance cool again by not dumbing it down, but by making it make sense. They remind you that curiosity is still in style, even when the world is sliding toward apathy and anti-intellectualism.
3. Megha Sawhney (@desicopywriter)
Megha calls herself “LinkedIn ki rani” and honestly, it’s a rightful claim. A DU and Jamia grad in English, she broke the internet (okay, at least corporate LinkedIn) with her bindi-themed copywriting portfolio: 2k+ likes, 500+ comments, and a collective “why didn’t I think of this?”
It’s easily the most creative portfolio I’ve ever seen. It made me rethink what a portfolio could even look like. And I’m not one for theatrics, but I was genuinely awestruck.
She doesn’t sugarcoat the freelancing life, especially after spending over five years in the industry. She calls out corporate culture for what it is: exhausting, performative, and obsessed with this bizarre idea that “the new generation doesn’t want to work hard” (which is just factually and statistically untrue).
That same culture strips people of freedom outside work, and wraps it in hustle-glamour until it feels normal.
Honestly, it’s hard to pin her content into a single box. Every reel feels like she cleared her calendar, brewed some chai, grabbed her favorite pen, and wrote something for us. They’re funny, insightful, and effortlessly simple in that perfectly mix of Hindi-English that feels both natural and profound. Very few people can do that. I definitely won’t group myself with them.