If you have been around a toddler in the last few years, chances are you are more than familiar with the term ‘Cocomelon’. The YouTube channel has been nothing short of sensational, racking up billions of views with kids’ content. But over the last year, an Indian cartoon has challenged it in the space, and that too, with homegrown stories and animation. In just 18 months, Emomee has grown from a YouTube channel with a thousand subscribers to a global entertainment brand with 1 billion views and two shows on Netflix.
What is Emomee?
Emomee began as aYouTubechannel with short animated videos for kids, involving three characters – E, Mo, and Mee. The short videos entertain children while also teaching life skills. In April 2025, soon after its launch, Emomee’s YouTube channel had 1,000 subscribers. By October 2026, that count has grown to 2.7 million. The channel has a cumulative 1 billion views, with multiple videos exceeding 1 million views each. In 2026, Emomee evolved from just a YouTube channel to launching two shows on Netflix – Big Skills for Little Ones and Playtime Explorers. According to the makers, the shows and videos currently reach over 100 countries.
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In conversation with Hindustan Times, Pooja Jauhari, founder and CEO of Emomee, says the impetus for its launch was an urge to introduce Indian kids to homegrown entertainment. “For years, Indian children have grown up loving characters created in other parts of the world. We asked ourselves a simple question: why can’t the next globally loved children’s franchise come from India?” she says.
While Emomee involves learning and inculcating life skills, Pooja says they are focused on entertainment first. “Our characters E, Mo and Mee entertain children while introducing them to 21st-century life skills like emotional intelligence, resilience, confidence, critical thinking and adaptability. These are skills children will need regardless of what the future looks like. But importantly, children don’t come to EMOMEE for lessons. They come for the characters, the stories and the fun. The learning happens along the way.”
From short videos to episodic storytelling
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Pooja Jauhari says that while Emomee began with short YouTube videos, the ambition was always to transition into long-form, interconnected storytelling that is seen as more ‘mainstream’. “The speed of growth has certainly exceeded our initial projections, but not our ambition,” she says, “we never set out to build just a successful YouTube channel. From day one, the ambition was to create a global children’s entertainment franchise with characters that could live across screens, experiences and products.”
”That aim materialised onNetflix, with the brand’s second show – Playtime Partners, launched earlier this year. Netflix brings EMOMEE into a different viewing environment, where families discover and engage with shows as part of their regular entertainment choices. Our second Netflix show, Playtime Explorers, is particularly significant because it marks our move towards more episodic, television-style storytelling, allowing us to build deeper narratives and character relationships,” says Pooja. “We’re still at the beginning of that journey. Our priority right now is to make Emomee as widely available and accessible as possible, across platforms, markets and languages.”
The science behind this phenomenon
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What makes Emomee, Cocomelon, and others like them so popular with children that their viewership numbers even dwarf those of mainstream YouTube videos? Kakul Faruqi, senior consultant psychologist, LH Hiranandani Hospital, attributes this to their packaging. “Children, especially the young ones, tend to be naturally attracted to bright colours, entertaining music, sound repetitions, and well-known characters and stories. The video shows that the content offered by Emomee and Cocomelon incorporates all these factors which attract young people’s attention,” he says. “It is also worth noting that videos offered by these companies are quite short and easy to watch. There is no need to spend much effort while watching such videos because the content is accompanied by music and animation.”
To many, these videos and cartoons have replaced the storybooks as the primary engagement tool for kids. Kakul Faruqi adds, “Although they haven’t fully replaced storybooks and traditional games, they definitely altered the way children entertain themselves and learn. Previously, children used to spend time listening to stories, turning pages of books, imagining what characters looked like, playing with toys, or inventing their own games. These activities allowed children to develop their imagination, problem-solving skills, language and communication skills.”
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(Additional inputs from Krishna Priya Pallavi)
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