Politics As Fun: Countering Indian Digital Nationalism With Viral Videos

Through a study of mimetic political videos produced by civil society groups and mainstream political parties during state-level elections in the east Indian West Bengal in 2021, this paper explores how diverse actors evoked politics of fun as a strategy to resist and extend digital nationalism. Fun has been theorized as “a political matter”; and as an agent to undermine hegemony. Fun also remained an indelible feature of right wing mobilization and nationalism. Everyday digital practices are articulated through wit, parody, sarcasm, and “memification”; and translate to joyful conducts, spontaneity and lightness, or fun. Drawing from Lempert’s “mimetic practice,” this research argues that fun emerges as the site of “mimetic resistance” or ideological tension, as diverse political actors negotiate cultural identity through challenge to cultural purity and engagement with news.