“ Machan , which team are we going to troll for IPL,” asks Gautham Govindaraman, while seated on a brightly painted catamaran on Marina Beach. This is a serious question that warrants a serious answer, even though it is about trolling. The five men seated around him suddenly turn silent, deep into thought.
Meet the men who create content, make memes and support the spirit of the city on the Chennai Memes Facebook page: Social media analyst Gautham (online pseudonym: Joker), graphic designer Barath Subramani (Grim), software developer Sri Ranga Rajan (Cypher), software engineer Praveen B. (Bane), engineering student Ram Y.S. (Anniyan) and school graduate Adrian David (Donglee). The page, started over a year ago, currently has 85,908 likes.
“I wanted to do something that captured the emotion and essence of Chennai,” says Gautham, founder of the page. They post facts about the city, poke fun at its quirks, celebrate its culture, comment on current events and paint a picture of nostalgia for those who are away from home. Mostly though, the boys aim to entertain. “We see what’s trending and spontaneously come up with an idea for a meme. If it makes us laugh, we post it,” explains Barath.
Poking fun at private businesses and taking a stand on political issues has won them a few haters. “We receive a lot of hate mail for making fun of die-hard fans of actors,” reveals Praveen, and adds that for the last year, they’ve kept their identities a secret, using only their pseudonyms on the page. The boys insist, though, that nothing is personal; it’s all in good humour. “We’re just trolling them, we don’t hate them,” smiles Ranga. “According to statistics, Chennai has the third highest number of Internet users in the country,” says Gautham. Although the page requires time and effort, they haven’t monetised it yet, and don’t get any benefits in return. “You know how you feel when you get ‘likes’ for a profile picture? That’s how we feel about getting viewers for our page,” grins Barath, and adds that they just want to make people happy through the content they create.
Though they are constantly in conversation about current events and how to create new content out of it, the administrators hardly get a chance to meet in person because of their day jobs. Together with the entire team for the first time at the city’s landmark beach, the boys kick up sand and walk with their arms around each other’s shoulders. They keep their eyes open all the while, to make sure they don’t miss anything that has potential for humour — the antics of beach goers, the insistent pleas of peanut vendors, the smell of freshly fried fish. “We are for the common Chennaiite,” says Ranga proudly, while Praveen adds that the idea is to post content that is relatable. As the sun sets on the city, they decide it’s time to wrap up the day in a typically Chennai way — with some hot bajjis by the beach.
