Memes: The joke is on you, Mr Politician

For some, long speeches of politicians are nothing but a bunch of lies and false promises. For others, these are boring as politicians endlessly attack opponents, more on personal issues than on policy or facts.

But in the social media age where everyone is hooked to smartphones, these speeches are hard to ignore as they get quick traction because of the army of supporters on either side.

However, what is even harder to miss on social media these days are the memes on politicians and their speeches and actions.

Memes are comic images, videos or texts drawn from popular media such as film, OTT shows or sports and mixed with political news elements, mostly for entertainment, but also to make a point in some cases.

With the assembly elections happening in states such as Tamil Nadu, Puducherry, West Bengal, Assam, and Kerala, it’s a busy time for politicians and also for meme creators.

Social media platforms are agog with creative and hilarious memes about politicians. Even political parties engage meme creators to create memes against their opponents, some of which extend to smear campaigns.

Politicians are taken to the washers for lying, for attempts to engage with locals or messing up with local languages, for corruption, for shifting allegiances and more. Often, meme creators engage with the audience through movie comedy characters who’ve portrayed a parody role of politicians.

Inside view

For Naveen Krishnan, 32, an IT professional working as a graphics designer in Bengaluru, creating memes and satirical videos is an alternative source of earning that he developed during college days.

A journalist-turned-IT professional hailing from Erode district in Tamil Nadu, Naveen started his Youtube channel named ‘Society Saraku’ (Society Liquor in colloquial terms) and started posting news videos initially such as on the Pollachi rape case, 2019 general election, Rafale deal, and more. But his memes and satirical videos got more traction, and Naveen decided to focus on these more.

“After the Ayodhya verdict, I put out a video in November 2019 comparing the judgment with the Chinna Gounder panchayat scene, a clip from a 1992 movie. It resonated with the audience and garnered a million hits in a short span. That gave me a fillip to do more such videos,” Krishnan says.

Krishnan now finds doing memes more convenient as making news videos involves “accurate data and more time”.

Poking fun at politicians comes easy for Krishnan. He uses Tamil actors such as Vadivelu, Goundamani, Manivannan, Sathyaraj, Vivek, and Karunas, who are all portrayed in parody roles of politicians and put with real news clips to ensure the fun.

In one of the videos, BJP leader H Raja saying in an interview that the Central government’s policies have reached every individual is laced with a clip of Vadivelu showing empty pockets.

In another instance, when Raja talks of alliance with AIADMK, another clip of Vadivelu saying we don’t have a choice except them, said in a movie context, is added in the video.

In another video, after actor Kushboo switched from Congress to BJP, a mashup of her statements criticising the BJP and praising the Congress and her current attacks are merged to highlight opportunistic politics.

In another instance, soon after DMK leader Stalin announced a ₹1,000 cash aid for women family heads in Tamil Nadu and AIADMK made a similar counter promise of ₹1,500, a meme questioned why not both the parties form an alliance and pay the women ₹2,500 in total.

Such memes and satirical videos seem to be the flavour of the season during elections. They provide an easy approach to the realm of politics, making it more accessible to the common man.

While some are based on facts, some are mere baseless statements to demean a particular party or opponent. While it’s a humorous way to express one’s opinions, the artists also educate people on hard-hitting topics by simplifying the information.

Political puppeteering

At a time when YouTubers, claiming to be non-partisan, raise voice against those of opposing ideologies, create fake narratives, and make wielded attacks on the media and opposition parties, Krishnan doesn’t shy away from mentioning his political leanings.

A politically left-leaning person, Krishnan says he makes satirical videos of all political parties and is not biased towards any. He takes on the BJP, AIADMK, and its allies, even actor-politicians Kamal Hassan, Sarath Kumar and Seeman. He also pokes fun at actors like Radha Ravi or Kushboo who switched parties at their convenience.

Krishnan reveals that he has refused to do memes for political parties, which are usually smear campaigns meant to demean and mock their opponents.

“A political party approached me to create videos for them. But I rejected it as it would be unethical. The idea is to expose people (politicians) who lie and make false statements,” Krishnan says. “I do it for fun and make people think about certain electoral issues.”

Unlike Krishnan, there are several YouTubers who’ve become the face of certain political parties. Over the last few months, there has been a concerted effort in Tamil Nadu to discredit the media, bring up the anti-Dravidian debate, propagate false claims that “RSS workers” are under attack, and also evoke religious and nationalist sentiment. They pose as “independent” journalists and their narrative seems to help parties with their communal agenda.

For instance, the YouTube account Tamil Politoon only attacks DMK and the Karunanidhi family. While people behind the channel did not reply to The Federal for an interview request, one can see a clear bias in their videos.

AIADMK leaders admitted that they engage such creative artists to take down the opponent (DMK).

“There’s no hiding the fact that all parties use memes and satirical videos. Not specific to AIADMK. All parties do it and pay ₹250, 500, ₹1,000 for each such meme or video,” former MP and AIADMK spokesperson KC Palanisamy says. “They (party) may not do it through their official accounts or channel but would fund a third party account.”

Palanisamy says the memes and satirical videos do not create a positive impact for their party but are used negatively against the opponent.

“In the social media age, where the elections are keenly observed with TV debates, YouTube videos, and memes, we cannot ignore them,” he says, adding that they have no objection when the other party does it too.

On the internet, AIADMK party leaders, including the current chief minister and cabinet ministers, falling to the feet of late Jayalalithaa and ‘Chinnamma’ (Sasikala) is something that’s played out repeatedly to show them in poor light.

Considering that AIADMK has been the target of criticism through memes, party senior leader D Jayakumar had warned that meme creators would be booked under the stringent Goondas Act.

“Both men and women (politicians) are targeted. A team is always ready to create a meme or post filthy comments as soon as we finish talking. What they are doing in an immature and cowardice act,” Jayakumar had said during a press conference. “If they have guts, let them post it with their phone numbers and address and then see what happens afterward.”

DMK spokesperson Saravanan Annadurai too admits its IT cell has an in-house team that creates these memes to challenge the opponent.

“Memes work during the political campaign if it goes with the flow (political developments) so that people can relate. It only strengthens one’s existing view not letting voters form a new opinion,” Annadurai says.

However, he adds that “unlike AIADMK”, they only put out “memes to criticise the ruling government’s policies and fake narratives but not to do smear campaigns”.

“They tried to tarnish our leader’s (Stalin) image in the 2019 election but they failed miserably,” he says.

A 2017 study on the impact of the internet meme as a tool in communicating political satire by Dr. Anushka Kulkarni of Amity University in Madhya Pradesh concluded that internet memes are used as a tool of political discourse but do not have a major impact on the audience although it improves political engagement of the digital natives.

Like fake news, memes and satirical videos may not directly shape the opinion of the voters, but repeated watching of it may strengthen one’s existing belief about a certain political party or leader.

“The results of this study also indicated that user-generated media like political internet memes are an important influence in today’s media environment, and have implications for other forms of political outcomes, including concerns about opinion polarisation, civic discourse, and the public sphere,” the author said in the report.