Going viral on bull run

On December 29, Awesome Machi, a popular Facebook page with over 613,096 followers put out a video with the following post: We take the time to troll people, actors, and everything in between. We spend our time hurting sentiments with our vicious words. We have time for a lot of terrible things. For once, let’s come together for a cause worth fighting for. Let’s unite for Jallikattu. Let’s stand together for Jallikattu! This, followed by the hash tags #TNneedsJAL LIKATTU  #VoiceForJallikattu. The videos glorify the traditional sport and how the bull has been an important part of the Tamil tradition. The post till date has had over 1.2 million views. It first came up when many were simmering with rage at the ban and was reflected through various online forum. Pages like Awesome Machi, Chennai Memes, Chennai Pasanga da, Ennama Ippadi Panreengale Ma and Chennai Colours have been spearheading the youth movement in mobilising the crowd and getting the message across. When the protest first started on Tuesday, only a few hundreds gathered at the beach to show the support during MGR’s centenary celebrations on Marina beach, where politicians and other leaders were likely to be present. 

The arrests in Alanganallur also triggered the youth to not just stay behind their computers but made them come out on the streets. As the word spread on social media, the information spiralled and lead to what the protest has become today — a peaceful youth movement in an attempt to save their culture. “We are an entertainment page wherein we post memes and videos about movies and personalities who celebrates Tamil and the culture. However, towards the end of 2016, there was a lot of talk about revoking the ban and that’s when we started actively participating. We received hundreds of messages from across the globe showing the support. When the protest finally began, we were the first ones to be out there on the ground,” says Manish Kishore of Awesome Machi. 

Chennai Memes founded three years ago is another page that has been on top of the game since the protests began. “We were approached by an activist who has been working for the cause for a long time. We decided to work with him and started the campaign online. Our team members also participated in a walkathon in the first week of January and since then have been gathering support through the 630,466 people following us,” says 23-year-old Gautham Govindaraman, founder of Chennai Memes. 

These pages also played an important role in disseminating information. “People needed water and food and they reached out to us. We put out some of these information after verifying them with those present on the field. Our 12 members across the state constantly give us information and the team here is putting out memes and other updates. We coordinated with someone who wanted to install mobile toilets for the women. We were also in touch with Chennai Trekking Club and other organisations to ensure the beaches were cleaned up,” adds Gautham. 

With so much content out there, verifying information also becomes important. Twenty-year-old SJ Vijay Leonard of Chennai Colours, says, “We were receiving messages from Melbourne, Toranto, Coimbatore and even Pune who reached out to us saying that they are staging protests in their respective states. We filtered them out and asked them to send us the picture of the permission given by the local police before giving away the details on our page.” 

The protests in the state is different from what we unusually see as there is no one face or a hero. The youth, who are active on the social media, is the face. “One of the core reasons why the protest has triggered so much is because of the emotions of the Tamils. Most of these local pages created a few set of posts on jallikattu that went viral with 40,000 shares and above. It’s also the celebrities who have played their part well on social media. Almost all actors who use the social media has spoken in favour of jallikattu which has resulted in their fans picking the trend,” says Sorav Jain, a social media expert.