For Nepal's protesters, wealthy 'nepo kids' are source of outrage

In the weeks leading up to Tuesday's violent protests in Nepal, photographs purporting to show the ritzy lifestyles enjoyed by the children of the country's political elite were shared widely on social media.

They were tagged #nepokids, suggesting young people who had profited from their families' connections, and they were condemned by many Nepalis as out-of-touch in a country where 1 in 4 live below the national poverty line.

It is not clear if these images were real or fabricated, but they have come to symbolize the corruption that many Nepalis say has widened inequality and enriched officials and their relatives.

The outrage has been one of the drivers of the protests, which were triggered by a social media ban but were fueled by years of resentment against those in power.

As part of Nepal's #nepokids social media trend, users upload videos and posts to TikTok and X that purport to show the children of Nepali political figures on luxury vacations and wearing fancy clothing, juxtaposed with scenes meant to show the everyday struggles of ordinary Nepalis.

Among the most frequently shared images was a photo claiming to show a son of a minister posing with boxes labeled Louis Vuitton and Cartier, arranged into a Christmas tree. Another video stitched photos the user claimed was the son of a former judge dining at high-end restaurants and posing next to a Mercedes car.

"Thousands of such videos are trending across Nepal's digital ecosystem," said Raqib Naik, the executive director of the Center for the Study of Organized Hate, a watchdog group based in Washington that tracks extremism and misinformation online in South Asia and its diasporas.

The contrast "between elite privilege and everyday hardship struck a deep chord with Gen Z and quickly became a central narrative driving the movement," he said.

Nepal's "nepo kids" trend, using an abbreviated version of nepotism, is similar to the popular concept in the West, where that term and "nepo babies" is used to refer to the privileged children of celebrities and other public figures.

In many posts, images of those so-called "nepo kids" are interspersed with images depicting the struggles faced by ordinary and poor Nepalis, expressing a widespread sense in Nepal that the affluence of the country's political class has come at the expense of the wider population.

Transparency International, an independent nonprofit, has ranked Nepal as one of the most corrupt countries in Asia. Despite frequent scandals, typically involving collusion among elected politicians and supposedly independent officials, very few accusations have resulted in successful prosecutions.

For example, a parliamentary probe revealed that at least $71 million was embezzled in the construction of an international airport in the city of Pokhara. And in another case, Nepali leaders were caught collecting money from young people aspiring to find employment in the United States under the cover of refugee status that was intended for ethnic Nepalis who had been forcibly deported from neighboring Bhutan.

In particular, young people have recoiled at a small number of elite Nepalis seen to be accumulating vast estates for their children, with many calling for the state to open investigations into how they were purchased.

The government's short-lived ban on social media further antagonized protesters, who saw it as an attempt to control criticism of the inequalities they continue to protest against.