‘Men are emotionally stunted’: How a Mumbai designer is reviving India’s forgotten barbershop songs

The website, created by Mumbai-based designer and internet entrepreneur Yash Bhardwaj, is remarkably simple. Open it, and you are greeted by a playlist of songs associated with the traditional Indian barbershop—the kind of music that many millennials and older Gen Z users remember hearing while getting their hair cut as children.

Bhardwaj posted a screen recording of the website on X with a simple description: “I made a website that plays bangers from Indian barbershops before you became fancy and started visiting salons. You once went to a ‘saloon’. Rs 20 haircuts. Simple hairstyles with music that could fix your soul.”

I made a website that plays bangers from indian barbershops

before you became fancy and started visiting salons. you once went to a ‘saloon’. ₹20 haircuts. simple hairstyles with music that could fix your soul. https://t.co/j3E8VfwiUU pic.twitter.com/LAsgeEfPAX

— Yash Bhardwaj (@ybhrdwj) August 8, 2026

It struck a chord almost instantly.

His post went on to cross 44 lakh views, with hundreds of users sharing their own memories of neighbourhood barbers and the music that accompanied those visits. Within hours, the idea had spawned its own variations, from truck-driver playlists to garba playlists and even roadways bus playlists.

For Bhardwaj, however, the website was never meant to become a viral phenomenon. “I made it for fun,” he told indianexpress.com during an exclusive conversation.

From a creative rut to a viral website

The idea came at a time when Bhardwaj was, by his own admission, struggling to create. “I was in a rut. For a week or maybe 10 days, I have not produced a new video and I have not produced anything interesting. I was just doing my regular work and I was feeling very uncreative. Basically, I was feeling myself the equivalent of writer’s block,” he said.

Then he began noticing a recurring theme on his social media feed. Reels of people talking about the songs they heard in Indian barbershops during the 1990s and early 2000s were being described as the “peak Indian male experience”.

Bhardwaj already had a similar playlist saved on Spotify. Instead of simply sharing it, he decided to turn it into something people could experience. “I was feeling really happy that I have made something artful,” he said.

The website took surprisingly little time to build: “1-2 hours”, according to Bhardwaj. He was inspired by international websites such as Poolsuite FM and lofi.cafe, and built Saloon.wtf using Claude Code. He also found a way to play the music without directly hosting or downloading the songs.

“I have not downloaded the songs, which would make it illegal. What I’m doing is a smart trick of, you know how YouTube lets you play a video on your website, like embed a video on your website, I’ve done that, and I’ve hidden the video,” he explained.

The simplicity of the idea, however, turned out to be its biggest strength.

Why did a barbershop playlist hit such a nerve?

Bhardwaj believes the answer lies in something much bigger than music. “Everything in life and in content and movies is about evoking emotions,” he said. “People want to feel different emotions.” He believes the barbershop experience worked because it is one of those rare memories shared by people across backgrounds.

“Most men are, because it’s popular amongst men, they are a bit emotionally stunted, and they’re, like, it’s hard to express yourself in that way. So you’re always desiring that you want to feel a strong emotion.”

And then comes the simplest explanation.

“This barbershop thing is a very common tying experience that everyone, like, you could be anybody today in India and Rs 20 mei baal toh kataye honge,” he said. “Culture is nothing but common shared experiences.”

That commonality appears to have been the secret sauce.

You did not have to be a particular age, live in a particular city or even remember a particular barber. If you grew up in India, chances are you had experienced some version of it—the small mirror, the barber’s chair, the talcum powder, the aftershave, the familiar songs, and the occasional head massage.

For many, it was not nostalgia for a specific song. It was nostalgia for an entire atmosphere. And Bhardwaj understood that the music had to get the feeling right.

“Agar woh first 5 gaane kuch aur hote na, toh the website would have felt very different,” he said. “It gets the particular signature tune which people relate to instantly.”

The man behind the ‘Rs 20 haircut’ nostalgia

Bhardwaj’s own journey is almost as unconventional as the website. He never went to college and studied only until Class 12. Instead, he entered the internet’s early meme culture, creating meme pages when Facebook was still one of the biggest platforms for viral content in India.

He also claims to have created the viral “Sonam Gupta Bewafa Hai” meme. “I had no business acumen. That’s why I had to let go of it (meme page) and then I pivoted to doing design,” he added.

Over the last decade, Bhardwaj says he has worked with more than 280 companies. His work has taken him across different worlds, including design and crypto, and he has worked under Balaji Srinivasan and with the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.

That background perhaps explains why building a website in a couple of hours did not seem particularly unusual to him. What was unusual was what happened after he pressed publish.

1.1 million visitors and hundreds of copycats later

Bhardwaj later shared the numbers behind the phenomenon: 1.1 million people had visited Saloon.wtf, while 481 similar music websites had appeared. The project had also generated 19 million views across Instagram and X.

🤯the last 48 hours have been unreal: pic.twitter.com/fYuTtKU0f0

— Yash Bhardwaj (@ybhrdwj) August 10, 2026

Even Paytm founder Vijay Shekhar Sharma reacted to the post. “I loved it,” Bhardwaj recalled.

But virality also brought criticism.

Just a day before Saloon.wtf was launched, another creator, Shubham Bhatt, had made a similar website featuring a 3D radio. After Saloon.wtf took off, some users accused Bhardwaj of copying the concept and presenting it in a different format.

Bhardwaj, however, said he had not seen Bhatt’s post before making his own website. “Shubham replied to my post that he’s made a 3D radio of some kind and I thought it was quite cool. But his post had no views. By his own admission, his thing didn’t blow up. I did not see his post,” he said. “But I was also pleasantly surprised that we made something similar within a day’s time,” he added.

Perhaps that is also what makes the Saloon.wtf story interesting. The moment Bhardwaj’s website connected with people, others immediately began recreating the formula around their own memories. A truck driver’s playlist. A garba playlist. A roadways bus playlist. The format was easy to copy. The emotion was not.

Because what made Saloon.wtf work was not simply a collection of old songs or a clever website. It was the recognition that millions of people had once occupied the same small, ordinary spaces—often without realising that those moments would one day become memories.

And maybe that is why a website built in two hours ended up doing something much bigger: reminding people of a version of India that existed before everything became a “salon”, before playlists became personalised algorithms, and before even a Rs 20 haircut could feel like a luxury from another time.