Memes often face backlash

Although not as highly regarded as political cartoons, memes are doing their job of satirising the high and mighty. Sadly, not all leaders are sporting: they haul up meme makers for their humour

The top photo says ‘Bandhu balaga’ (relatives) while the second says ‘Bandh balaga’ (Bandh crowd). Offended parties sometimes serve notices on meme creators.

In October, the High Court ordered the Karnataka government to pay a fine of Rs 1 lakh to the administrator of Troll Maga, a Facebook group. The court penalised the government for going after someone whose only crime was to indulge in satire.

The group had created a meme on former prime minister HD Deve Gowda and his family. The arrest followed a police complaint lodged by JD(S), alleging that S Jayakanth had uploaded defamatory posts against Gowda, his son and then chief minister H D Kumaraswamy, and grandson Nikhil Kumaraswamy on Facebook and Instagram.

In recent years, arrests for lampooning political leaders have become a regular reality.

Memes emerged as a digital trend in 2015, and have since become a popular tool to poke fun at the movie industry, politics and current affairs. However, just as they have the ability to make people laugh, they also have the ability to annoy the rich and the powerful.

Why political memes?

Karan Talwar, of Sng Comedy (a comedy group), who runs the Instagram page Bollywood Gandu (175K followers), says memes are a good way to make a point without being too offensive.

“Of course, we Indians can get offended at almost anything. But in the past three to four years, it has become a great way of communicating with people about things that are new and trending,” he says.

The best way to do this is to connect to something people may not be aware of with something popular, such as a scene from a popular show.

“A lot of people tell me they get their news from these posts. You get to stay updated without having to listen to Arnab yell or read biased news reports,” he shares.

He chooses topics on the basis of two factors— one, how current it is, and two, the kind of response it could generate.

Akash M P, co-admin of Troll Haiklu, a Bengaluru-based group with 2.3 lakh followers, says the group has moved away from politics to popular culture.

“It was during the elections that we decided to become neutral. Our team is made of people from the left and right-wing, and posting political content was raising issues within the team,”
he says.

Namdu K is a YouTube channel that uses memes to keep its audiences engaged. R Shravana Narayana, who runs its Instagram page, says some precautionary thought goes into the making of political memes.

“We look into whether the situation can be joked about and if people will be able to handle it. We created a lot of content around Article 370 and Hindi imposition,” he says.

Comedy is subjective, he admits. “When someone is upset, we try to reason with them. But, almost always people start abusing. Sometimes I lose my patience and retaliate,” he says. A recent video on Nityananda garnered a lot of hate comments, he says.

Jokes to jail

Meme group Namdu K has had to deal with people who created fake profiles to badmouth them.

Karan Talwar, on the other hand, has had notices sent to him. “The closest I got to a run-in with the law was when Salman Khan’s lawyer got in touch with me because I made a joke about the hit and run case. I was just amazed that he reads my posts,” he says.

He is also threatened with potential police cases. “But many who threatened me are now in jail themselves, so I guess I don’t have to worry. What people need to remember is, a meme can’t do you any harm, so just let it be,” he says.

However, for many others, complaints and FIRs have become a problem to deal with regularly.

Earlier this year, in May, Sunikumar Nishad, 38, was charged with outraging religious feelings after a Shiv Sena member complained to the police about his allegedly “anti-Hindu” and “anti-Brahmin” Facebook posts. Nishad was granted bail the next day.

The same month, Priyanka Sharma, convener of the BJP’s Youth Wing in West Bengal, was arrested for sharing a “disrespectful” meme featuring chief minister Mamata Banerjee.

Priyanka had superimposed Mamata’s image on an image of Priyanka Chopra attending the Met Gala. She was eventually granted bail by the Supreme Court.

Most such arrests are made on the basis of complaints by party workers who claim to have been offended by social media posts critical of their leaders.

Troll-trouble?

“Ignore the haters,” says Karan Talwar, of Bollywood Gandu. Responding to the arrests of meme creators, he says, “If you have to go against soft targets like meme-makers and comedians, it shows how spineless the establishment is.”

Creating a ruckus over a post that one may not agree with only adds to the meme’s credibility, he observes. His advice to meme targets: “If you don’t like it, ignore it. People will forget about it soon enough.”

Akash M P of Troll Haiklu says people sometimes ask his group to take down posts. “As a policy, if the post is personally affecting someone, we take it down,” he says.

Meme-worthy Modi

Karan Talwar and R Shravana Narayana agree Modi is the most meme-worthy character in the country. “He is universal. His face is just everywhere. Everyone knows him,” says Karan.

Shravana says that could be because he is so ‘dynamic.’ “He loves attention. Modi as a person would love the memes. It’s his followers who have a problem,” he says.

Akash of Troll Haiklu says that the one person in Kannada movies who is great fodder for memes is Pankaj, factor and S Narayan’s son. “It is because of his movies. His choices are bad, and he is a terrible actor,” he says.

The problem with memes

Since anyone can make memes, it means that people can use the medium to spread misinformation.

“Many big politicians have IT cells in place to spread fake news and memes. However, there is no point in blaming the parties. I blame the audiences who don’t think it is necessary to cross-check their information,” says Shravana Narayana.

Karan Talwar says people have come to rely on meme pages and comedy channels for news. “Your news channels and primetime debates are all biased. In fact, if people are relying on us for news, it is only reflective of how disillusioned they have become with the news industry,” he says.

Using humour as a coping mechanism is not new, but the younger generation likes to understand political discourse through humour.

Whether we’re dealing with terror attacks or elections, there’s apparently nothing that can’t be memed.

Political memes the new political cartoons?

Editorial cartooning is considered a more serious art while memes are often viewed as surface-level jabs.

However, it seems memes are powerful for a variety of reasons. One, youth relate to them. They have the ability to condense a topic, and they don’t demand a long attention span.

Often, pop culture references keep both things vibrant and relatable.

Political cartoons are alive and continue to capture readers’ attention. For decades, they have remained a medium with the ability to challenge governments and open important public discussions.

However, the meme is considered a more democratic form. One does not need the skill to draw: anyone can make memes, provided they are funny, and are up to date on current affairs.

Memes during Elections 2019

The 2019 elections saw memes being used by the BJP and the Congress.

A video meme posted on the official INC Facebook page used a clip from Stanley Kubrick’s ‘The Shining’. Danny Torrance cycles down the empty corridors of the Overlook Hotel. He turns a corner and instead of finding dead, creepy twins, he finds PM Modi giving his demonetisation speech.

During this time, it was widely reported that the BJP relied largely on WhatsApp propaganda, with pages like Squint Neon coming to their aid.

Political cartoons

Usually found on the editorial pages of newspapers, political cartoons employ visual metaphors and caricatures to address complicated political situations. Cartoonists balance artistic skill, satire and the truth for this. Part news and part art, these cartoons often draw on two unrelated events for humorous effect.

While many believe that memes are the new political cartoons, not everyone agrees. “Readers know of the cartoonists, their integrity and their courage and political neutrality. So, readers stand by the cartoonist and the cartoonist’s rights,” says cartoonist Satish Acharya.

He says that the only common factor between the two forms is humour. However, there still remains a chasm of difference in how it functions. “Political cartoons are not jokes, even though there is a dose of humour in them. The intention of the meme is to entertain. They are shallow; they have no soul,” he muses.

Nonetheless, he does agree that memes do enjoy an advantage over cartoons. “They are quicker. As soon as news breaks, they arrive. But, that is also because they are made using photos,” he says.