They now drive the election conversation in the State

Come election, the social media timelines of most candidates mirror each other — photographs and videos of visits to a remote village, religious festival or rally and little else. Barring the odd post that goes viral, most do not generate much conversation.

But in a State like Kerala, where even the police use memes to connect with people, the election-time conversation is now driven by popular meme pages, with those maintaining a fairly neutral stand gaining more hits than the others.

Many of the posts in these pages get 10 times more hits and likes than those on a candidate’s Facebook page. And that is just the numbers these memes clock on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter. The real game happens elsewhere, on WhatsApp, where the memes are instantly shared across multiple groups. But unlike other platforms, there is no way to quantify the impact, or verify the source, on WhatsApp.

Popular platforms

Leading the pack is the “International Chalu Union”, one of the pioneers of the meme culture in the State. With a million followers, its content draws on popular cinema and culture the public can easily relate to. With a liberal, progressive leaning, they are often branded as left, but the left too draws sharp criticism in the ICU’s memes.

On the other side, and equally popular, is “Troll Malayalam”, which had taken a pro-right stand during the Sabarimala protests, but which otherwise directs its barbs at all parties.

Some other pages though proudly wear their politics on their sleeve, not even attempting to strike a balance. One of them is “Outspoken”, which says its aim is to propagate the Sangh Parivar’s point of view, while attacking everyone else. On the opposite pole is “Troll Sangh”, which unreservedly attacks the Sangh Parivar.

The hot topic of memes this week is the Election Commission’s warning to political parties not to solicit votes in the name of the Sabarimala temple or Ayyappa. While most of the pages have funny takes on how the BJP has now been left without an election issue, “Outspoken” has memes on the unfairness of the directive.

The official pages of various parties have begun occasionally using memes, which they increasingly find to be more effective at pushing their narrative, rather than plain text and images.