Boy Throb had to go viral to get its fourth member a U.S. visa

Darshan Magdum, a member of the viral boy band Boy Throb, has announced that his U.S. visa has been approved.

“I got the visa!” Magdum exclaimed on a FaceTime call with his fellow bandmates on Monday. Magdum, originally from India, has been at the forefront of Boy Throb’s rise to stardom due to his struggles with the U.S. immigration system.

Dressed in pink velvet tracksuits, Boy Throb began sharing adaptations of popular songs in October 2025 to prove they were a real band so that Magdum could obtain a visa and perform with them in the United States. Earlier this year, to the tune of Sabrina Carpenter’s “Manchild,” the band sang: “Oh I’d like Darshan to be in the USA, oh I need him here by New Year’s Day.” To the tune of Taylor Swift’s “The Fate of Ophelia,” the band sang: “It’s about to be the greatest night you’ve been dreaming of, the fate of Darshan’s visa.”

In January, the band released a parody of the Christmas classic “Here Comes Santa Claus,” which explained the strenuous process of applying for the O-1 visa. “Our petition’s been submitted and is awaiting its review. USCIS will adjudicate in 15 business days. Adjudicate means formal judgment; we hope it goes our way. Once Darshan’s visa’s approved, there’s one thing left to do. He’ll have to go to the consulate in Mumbai for an interview.”

The O-1 visa is a U.S. nonimmigrant visa designated for people with “extraordinary abilities.” In FY 2024, there were more than 20,000 O-1 visa applications and over 1,000 rejections, with application costs ranging from about $8,000 to over $10,000.

The decision is a win for Magdum, who first applied for a visa in December 2025 but was denied because the U.S. government—along with some people on the internet—questioned the legitimacy of Boy Throb. To prove they were a real band, Boy Throb began its nationwide “Rehearsal Tour.” Magdum would often appear at their concerts via Zoom, increasing popular demand for his visa to be approved so the band could perform together in person.

“We all assumed I’d be in the U.S. by spring, where we planned to finally be able to be a full-time boy band touring the country and sharing our music and meeting all of you lovely people,” Magdum explained in a video in April. “But the government’s delay of my visa has set us way back.”

“This case really caught my attention because they knew that they had people with talent, they knew they had people with an idea, but they let the fame come before the recognition of the ability,” Jonathan Grode, the Pennsylvania-based immigration lawyer who submitted additional paperwork for Magdum’s visa, told The Guardian. “It fundamentally begs the question of: how is fame created?”

It also begs the question of why the immigration system is so complex and expensive. Moving legally to the United States can cost applicants and employers thousands of dollars in government fees, paperwork, and legal support, with no guarantee that a visa will be granted. The Cato Institute notes that in 2024, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) collected roughly $7 billion in immigration fees. They also found that between 2003—when USCIS was created—and 2022, the total length of USCIS immigration forms increased from 193 pages to 701.

While Magdum’s visa was eventually approved, millions of people across the world are refused U.S. visas each year. An upshot of the Boy Throb saga is that many Americans are now far more aware of how needlessly complex the immigration system is. Unfortunately, we’ll never know if the people the government stops from immigrating are as fabulously talented as Magdum, because they weren’t given the opportunity to try.