Somewhere in the Bharatiya Janata Party’s outreach machinery, someone pitched a F.R.I.E.N.D.S. themed Instagram Reel to win back Gen Z. You’ve seen the kind—they’re set to the title track, with whatever visuals the creator wants to put. In this instance, it was many, many photos of Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
“F.R.I.E.N.D.S… PM Modi is there for you,” said the caption. Who is going to tell the BJP’s social media branch that the show beloved by millennials nationwide never passed Gen Z’s woke test? It’s sexist, has negligible Black characters, and Chandler is disgusting. We kind of despise it, actually.
In a social media ecosystem where every reel feeds off of another, it didn’t take long for memes to show up. Memes about the F.R.I.E.N.D.S. video calling the show dated. Lip-sync clips of PM Modi’s low-angled “Hi friends” reels and his newfound Instagram influencer era. Parodies of the now-infamous gym video. Reels mocking BJP leaders for using Gen Z slang to appeal to the younger generation.
That was the Viral Spiral of a generation cringing hard at the government’s attempt to speak its language.
Since Dharmendra Pradhan’s resignation last week, there had been a lull on the feed. People didn’t quite know what to do with themselves. They posted wistful videos about the Jantar Mantar protest days. That’s when the government decided to step in to fill the void.
It began with PM Modi addressing his “friends” in a selfie video at midnight. Ironically, his attempt at relatability ended up revealing just how little the government knows its younger citizens.
Cosplayers were the first to jump on the trend. Two separate videos recreated the original, featuring young children with foam smeared across their chins to mimic the thick white beard, while Modi’s speech played in the background.
“Next level of roasting by Gen Alpha,” said a post on X.
Also read: Gen Z took the ‘kuchu puchu’ route to dissent. The protest was endlessly memefied
BJP vs Gen Z meme war
Then came the part that must have genuinely stung the BJP’s media cell. Content creator Arnav Jain sat down and reviewed Modi’s reel like a marketing case study, and posted the teardown as content.
“Number 1: missing hook. Number 2: mitron brand positioning. Aapne friends kyu kaha? Your whole brand is about ‘mitron’. Aap usse abandon kaise kar sakte hain? (Why did you say ‘friends’? How can you abandon your brand?)” Jain asked in the reel.
He went point by point to explain everything wrong with the video.
The gym reel posted by the BJP’s official handle—which featured actors trying to imitate Gen-Z and discredit the protest—has had it worse. Creators called out BJP’s half-hearted attempt to appease Gen Z in their language.
In a reel captioned “that one damage control sarkaari paid ad”, creator Md Anas struck an exaggerated gym-bro pose – flexing his arms with a lost look on his face. He mimicked the original actor’s—a generous word, I know—voice.
“Youth dudes, you haven’t even clocked what India was like when he was 10,” he began, the script revealing just how awkward it was to hear slang in the reel posted by the BJP handle.
It’s the political equivalent of that scene in Mean Girls (2004), where Regina’s mom tells the young girls, “I am not a regular mom, I am a cool mom!” Even she knew that slang doesn’t speak to the youth; actions do.
The whole thing is funnier considering the BJP built its modern media machine on staying ahead of the algorithm—memes, WhatsApp forwards, hashtag campaigns—for over a decade. The tools of mockery it perfected have been picked up by teenagers who used them to demand a Union minister’s resignation. Now, the government’s response is to try and out-meme the Gen Z. The official handle of the BJP Chhattisgarh made a video calling young girls dancing at the protest ‘Babar Ki Virasat pe Thumke Lagane wale GenZ‘ (Gen Z who dance on the heritage of Babar). The creator of the dancing video then replied with a review of the BJP reel, and she made a whole PPT about it. Her first criticism? “Your caption game is very weak.”
This is a generation that has come of age in a social media ecosystem overrun by bots, sponsored posts, and ragebait. It has learned to clock realness in about half a second. That instinct doesn’t switch off just because the account posting is verified, blue-ticked, and run by the ruling party of the world’s largest democracy.
The BJP wanted relatability—it got schooled instead.
Views are personal.
(Edited by Prasanna)