In our perpetually connected, social media saturated culture, it’s not easy to step away from your device or the online world – especially if you have almost a million subscribers relying on your antics and talents for their daily entertainment. But former YouTube fixture, Toronto’s Jasmeet Raina (also known as Jus Reign) did just that. In 2018, he went totally dark, leaving his followers to wonder where he went. Years later, Raina resurfaced in 2024, giving both the Canadian entertainment industry and his Punjabi Sikh community something to talk about – and celebrate – with his eight-part Crave series, Late Bloomer. The series is loosely based on his life and is celebrated not only for its heartwarming realness and memorable comedic moments, but as a game-changer for South Asian representation in Canadian TV.
RELATED
Comic relief: The early years
Millennial Jasmeet Raina grew up in Guelph, Ontario – a small city in southwestern Ontario – and discovered the allure of comedy at an early age. “I’m not sure if I was a natural entertainer,” says Raina of his childhood. “I think I was always a comedy nerd, and I always enjoyed good comedy. I grew up watching a lot of comedy, film, and TV – I really enjoyed it. Growing up in Guelph, it was post-9/11 and it was all pretty much white kids. I was sort of like, you know, ‘What’s my thing to survive?.’ I think being funny kind of dispelled some of the racism but also kind of normalized myself with my peers, in a sense. So, I was able to be funny and witty in some classes and was a class clown.”
presented by
“I’m not sure if I was a natural entertainer,”
Jasmeet Raina “Jus Reign,” on socials as @jusreign
Back then, making a career out of his comedic chops wasn’t exactly a real option come high school graduation. “I always wanted to be director even more than a performer,” says Jasmeet Raina. “So, when I was in high school, I really gravitated towards film, and when I applied to university, I was applied to film programs because that’s what interested me. But I went a different route. I went into medicine because I was just like, ‘This is what I have to do; film’s not going to work out.’ I kind of listened to the fears that were projected on me from people in my own community or family, and they’re not to blame. I think they just wanted the best for me.”
A degree in medicine ultimately wasn’t for Jasmeet Raina. But then YouTube came around. “I think it was a great place to just make skits and films and comedy,” says Raina of the video-sharing platform. “It was just a good collection of all those skills, and wasn’t just me talking in front of a camera. It was always a production in some sense. So, there were always different scenes, locations, and characters and all that stuff, and I used to stitch my videos together. It was a combination of all those things.”
YouTube years: From shining star to total darkness
In 2009, when Raina jumped into the YouTube world, there was no real blueprint for navigating and excelling in that space because the platform was so new. “So, even the internet was kind of new and YouTube was three years old or whatever,” says Raina. “There were no real guidelines like when you’re in another type of entertainment industry. For an actor or whatever, you have an agent and all these people who were like, ‘This is how you do it.’ So, it was good and bad thing; you can kind of do a lot of things on your own – which I did. I didn’t really have people answer to when I was doing my creative work, which was very fulfilling as an artist in that sense. But also you’re just figuring out that the doors aren’t really open.”
Raina says that he eventually wanted to head into film and TV, but wasn’t sure exactly how to get there in terms of carving that path for himself. “I think constantly being labelled as an influencer was an issue,” says Raina. “I never saw myself as an influencer. I didn’t like that term – I didn’t like a lot of the internet terms. I was like, ‘I’m not a content creator or influencer guy, that’s not who I am.’ I just happened to have stumbled onto YouTube and that was the only way I could really express myself and write, create, act, and direct and edit and all that stuff. So, I never really gravitated to that term, but it just kept being thrust upon me.” Noted.
Naturally, Jasmeet Raina’s decision to create his own TV show wasn’t an overnight one. The seed had been planted since 2015, he says. “I knew back then that I wanted to make a TV show,” says Raina. “I even pitched a version of the show at that time as well, but it was more upbeat and more like Broad City – those were the influences at the time. I also just enjoyed doing sketch, so I kept doing that on YouTube. Then, I kind of neared the end of my YouTube run and was like, ‘Ok, this feels like it’s too easy. It just doesn’t feel like it’s creatively fulfilling. I want to be able to tell a version of the story and I don’t think YouTube is the right medium.’ I feel like I was changing as a person.”
So, Raina stepped away from the life under the social media spotlight to re-evaluate. And, when we say “stepped away,” we mean he went entirely dark, disappearing from the platform completely.
“I was growing I was evolving and I felt like the whatever I was creating should reflect that, and so that’s when I was like, ‘Okay, I feel like now is the time to really kind of buckle down and figure out what kind of show and the tone of the show that I really want to make,’” says Raina. “So, in 2018 and 2019, I really just kind of went in and really carved out the world – characters and tone and all that stuff – to figure out what kind of show I really wanted before I began pitching it.”
Jasmeet Raina’s ‘Late Bloomer’ era
This TV concept would ultimately become Late Bloomer. The series premiered on Crave in January and calls famed Canadian comedian Russell Peters one of its executive producers. It’s real, raw, and filled with as many LOLS as it is familiar sights from around the Greater Toronto Area (GTA). If you’re feeling like you’re falling behind in life (and even if you’re not), this show is for you.
“It’s about this guy in his 30s that feels like he’s just doing everything wrong and is behind in life and he’s constantly comparing himself to everyone around him,” says Jasmeet Raina. “He’s finally kind of hitting his stride on the internet, but it’s hard for him to balance career and family, so he’s always kind of in this middle space of not knowing which direction he’s going. But every character on the show is sort of a late bloomer.”
As for Raina, he says that the term “late bloomer” was one that always resonated with him (unlike influencer), despite him being an early adopter of the internet and having experienced success at such an early age. “The internet is sort of a jail; it’s an attention-demanding and time-demanding place, so you don’t really get to develop yourself personally,” says Raina. “So, I definitely felt that I was a late bloomer maybe on a personal level, and I brought a lot of those elements into this character.”
Raina says the response to the show has been overwhelming in a positive way. “There have been a lot of people that have really deeply connected to either my character or any other character on the show; they see themselves and they feel like they’re being heard, especially people in the South Asian community,” says Raina. “The general consensus I got is, ‘I finally feel like I’m being seen and heard and my stories are being shared on the show.’ That’s the best compliment I can get, because my philosophy has always just been to be able to tell my story or a version of this story in the most authentic way possible.”
Jasmeet Raina says that he fought for that authenticity on Late Bloomer in everything from the characters and the language, to the wardrobe and set design. “Every little detail was very strenuously looked over to ensure we did the best we could in terms of authenticity,” says Raina. “There’s a very general appeal [of authenticity]; people really like things that feel real and I think audiences are much smarter than network executives would assume. When it feels real, people know it’s real. So, I think that was one of the best feelings – just to have people resonate with it.”
Shining the spotlight on South Asian representation
While we’re finally starting to see a shift on the representation front – thanks to shows like Late Bloomer – it’s no secret that the North American entertainment industry sees a shortage of South Asian faces on the big and smalls screens.
“I think the biggest thing is just keep fighting,” says Raina, when asked his advice for other South Asian creatives. “This is not just for South Asian people, though, but for everyone; just keep fighting for the vision. It’s not easy to adjust from creating your own content to going to TV. There’s so many factors, people, and things involved. So, I would say, if you have a strong vision about what your project is, always fight for that vision no matter what because it’s not easy to get something like this off the ground.”
While no easy feat in itself to create a series, Jasmeet Raina faced added challenges due to his ethnicity and related requirements. “Even while we were making the show, we were actively fighting and breaking down barriers of limitations and structures that were in place that aren’t really suited for shows for people of colour because there’s just never been a show like this,” he says. This meant the incorporation of the Punjabi language, something that came as a challenge due to a Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) rule that you can’t have over 15 per cent non-English if you’re working on a union show.
“I was like, ‘I can’t have these characters speak English, especially since there’s a dad-centric episode,’” says Raina. “I can’t have them walking around being like, ‘Hey Bill, how you doing today? There’s a coffee.’ That’s not our experience. So, I had to fight to appeal that rule; there was no committee to even appeal it, because it’s just never been appealed. So, they had to create a committee to even consider to appeal things.” Raina highlights considerations like having a turban-tier and a sari stylist on set.
Raina also fought for the show’s South Asian actors, many of whom didn’t come with long acting resumes. “They weren’t necessarily part of the union and they didn’t have a ton of experience, but I believed in them and really thought they could pull it off,” says Raina. “And they were really passionate to do it. So, I was even fighting those rules. Other people would encourage you to get actors that are more experienced or have more screen time or TV experience. But there’s nobody in that pool that really fits these characters because it’s just like nothing’s ever been written for them before.”
Jasmeet Raina calls challenging these norms while attempting to make the show a “double job.” He acknowledges, however, that it was well worth it. “It’s easy to get discouraged and do the easier thing because of time, pressure, and money, but I think that, if you’re really passionate about it, you have to just keep fighting for the things that really make the show special because that in itself is going to help other shows as well to do the same thing,” says Raina. “We want to make good content in Canada; that’s the goal. I want there to be great television here; we don’t always have to go to the states to find great television.”
In bloom: The next moves
The big question, of course is whether we’ll see another season (and more) of Late Bloomer. “We’re discussing future seasons on the show,” says Jasmeet Raina. “I took a little time off, but now I’m kind of gearing it to heading into that. I’m excited to just keep continuing the show and seeing which direction that takes. I’m also looking forward to doing bigger and better things as well. So, that’s kind of where I’m at right now, but I also have other kind of projects that I’d like to start getting off the ground too. Yeah, let’s see.”
In the meantime, Raina is enjoying remaining present and grounded in a life that’s no longer centred around the Internet. “I was constantly online and I don’t feel like I’m even really online anymore,” says Raina. “I only really have Instagram that I kind of post to here and there but I mean, I just, have a good group of people around me and good solid group of friends. My family is great; I love spending time with my family and connecting with them and just being creatively fulfilled – travelling and hiking and just doing regular human being things. I try to use my phone as little as possible and immerse myself in the world as much as I can.”
This can mean something as simple as taking Toronto’s infamous public transit system. “There’s so many interesting experiences, people, and things in the world,” says Jasmeet Raina. “I never used to take public transit, like ride the subway, and I do that all the time now because there’s so much to learn in just seeing people and experiencing their days and what they feel like; it’s just being a part of the world as much as I can. I think there’s richness to that.”
In fact, it’s his ability to step away from the internet that Raina cites as one of his proudest accomplishments. “There are so many milestones that I’ve hit and I’m about to keep going and hit a lot more milestones,” says Raina. “But I think the scariest and the toughest thing to do was just kind of step away from it when it’s the most counterintuitive thing to do when you have so many followers. You can’t just step away and not feed into this machine; you’re just going topple the whole thing and that’s a very scary. People think you’re going crazy if you do that, but I think that was super important for me; to really figure out what I want to do, what stories I want to share, and what kind of creative I wanted to be.”
Check back next Monday, April 22nd for the next special edition cover story featuring the next of our People to Watch 2024 #VIBEPower60 series: Meredith Shaw. Have you seen last week’s story featuring Keesa K?
Credits
Words by Erin Davis with support of editorial team. Photography and Retouching by: Nick Merzetti; Creative/Fashion Direction, and Co-Produced by: Steven Branco; Styled and Co-produced by: Sharad Mohan; Gaffer: Alejandro Silva Cortes; Makeup by: Angela Lee; Hair by: Duyen Huynh; BTS/PA: Mursal Rahman and Samir Mourani. Shot in studio at: Pie in the Sky Studios, Studio 1; Vintage vehicle: 1979, Chevrolet, Caprice Classic/courtesy of: Jason Miller @sitonfashion. Jasmeet’s wardrobe curated from: Harry Rosen.
Special thank you to our valued presenting sponsor: CITIZEN Watches