It is a work of faceless, anonymous people. They are arrested for a crime they did not commit, rather, create. So much so that they are painted as a threat to society. They are not part of a militant outfit nor do they have a global network, although their work does speak globally. Who are they, you wonder. The answer is: meme creators. In the upcoming Tamil web series Meme Boys, its creators Rajiv Rajaram, Drishya, and director Arun Koushik trace the life of a meme and its ecosystem, set against the backdrop of a college campus in a post-social media world.
The idea came from a sketch comedy video called Meme Creators Mersal that stand-up comedian Rajiv Rajaram had produced for his popular YouTube channel, Put Chutney, in 2017 and since then, he has been trying to make it into a web series. Adapting a 10-minute video into long form content, he says, was exciting and nerve-wracking at the same time. “If 10 people are in a room and even if two people are laughing at a joke, then the laughter will catch on. But web series are very solitary,” he says.
Rajiv is in a tea shop when we call him and he off-handedly mentions the shop playing a Korean show in Tamil. He brings in an analogy: “The world has become so close, don’t you think? And meme creators play a huge role. Remember Nesamani was trending worldwide, that even top politicians caught on? Through Meme Boys, I wanted to show them as aspirational figures,” he adds.
Rajiv Rajaram | Photo Credit: Special Arrangement
Referring to them as modern-day cartoonists who don’t use signatures (or watermark), Rajiv says he is fascinated by memes and the subculture. He remembers a laugh-out-loud meme that was shared on an assistant director’spage on Facebook called Field Clear. “In the first photo, we see Rajini being beaten up in Baasha with a caption ‘directors on the set’. The next photo shows the iconic Rajini smoking scene from Annamalai with the caption ‘directors during post-production’. This meme conveys what direction is all about in two photos,” he says, adding, “Imagine the self-awareness these guys must have. As a culture, we go through so much but these guys are telling us, ‘Look, I’m not saying I am better than you and vice versa. Let’s take a chill pill and laugh at ourselves’.”
Memes have become an essential part and have permeated our daily life, says Rajiv. “We easily consume five-six memes every day. It has become part of our lexicon. There were so many memes during COVID-19 that made us laugh.”
For director Arun Koushik, Meme Boys was a familiar turf having directed the original video for Put Chutney. His dream to make long-form content was finally realised. “Rajiv and I discussed this idea back when we made Meme Creators Mersal. When it came to the series, I felt there was a lot of visual scope for me. It is about college life but it is not something we are used to seeing. Since it’s about memes and creators, we have used social media as a character,” says Arun, an architect-turned-ad films director.
Arun Koushik | Photo Credit: Special Arrangement
Meme Boys is a tug-of-war between an autocratic dean and students, featuring actors Aadithya Baaskar, Namritha, Guru Somasundaram and Badava Gopi. “The series is a dramedy and is strongly rooted in Tamil cinema pop culture,” he adds.
The eight-episode series primarily caters to the college crowd, says Arun. “That is also the reason we didn’t pitch it to familiar actors. We wanted actors who looked the part since we wanted to bring out today’s college vibe in the series. Some of my assistant and associate directors are recent graduates. So, if a dialogue is not working, then they would immediately say, ‘It’s so boomer’.”
Meme Boys releases on SonyLIV on July 22.
