In partnership with

A couple of weeks ago, I learned a new word: aura farming. I’m still not sure if the noun is “aura farmer”, but when Nepal’s protests flooded my feeds, the phrase suddenly made sense.

Aura farming is basically the internet’s way of saying: So effortlessly cool and unbothered in the face of chaos that your vibe becomes the argument.

There was a video I couldn’t stop watching: a young man, in his college uniform, lying casually under a military truck filled with personnel, scrolling on his phone. The caption called it “unintentional aura farming.”

It was absurd, darkly funny, and yet so pointed. That one moment captured more about youth defiance than any official statement could.

That clip was just one of many. In another, protesters sat cross-legged in the street playing a game of UNO while chaos brewed around them. On a burning rooftop, someone broke into the viral aura farming boat-race dance, borrowed from an Indonesian boy’s meme, while in the crowd below, the flag of the Straw Hat Pirates from One Piece fluttered defiantly — anime rebellion transplanted onto Kathmandu’s skyline.

These weren’t random internet flourishes. They were the protest itself: aesthetic as argument, humour as survival, memes as shorthand policy. Nepal’s Gen Z weren’t just taking to the streets; they were performing politics in real time, both offline and online, in ways that the state and the world couldn’t ignore.

And then came the part no one quite expected: they went from memes to picking the prime minister… on Discord.

It’s not every day that tens of thousands of people choose a head of government on an app most of us still associate with gamers, K-pop fan servers, and late-night study groups. But that’s what happened in Nepal.

A former DJ named Sudan Gurung, now the face of a youth-driven collective called Hami Nepal (“We are Nepal”), pulled off something no electoral democracy had ever quite seen: they mobilised enough people through Instagram and Discord to topple Prime Minister K.P. Sharma Oli. Soon after, they hosted a live, sprawling debate to select his interim successor.

On Discord’s Youth Against Corruption channel, more than 10,000 people tuned in, with another 6,000 watching on mirrored YouTube streams. They grilled potential candidates in real time, invited experts to field questions, fact-checked rumours as they spread, and, after hours of deliberation, consensus built around one unlikely name: former chief justice Sushila Karki, best known for her tough stance against corruption.

By the end of the week, Karki had taken her oath of office as Nepal’s interim prime minister. In her first address, she admitted, “My name was brought from the streets.”

But why Discord? For one, it works differently. Unlike Twitter (Now X) or Instagram, Discord is built for voice, video, and threaded discussion. It allows moderators to organise multiple rooms, pin resources, run quick polls, and livestream debates. What began as meme-sharing and voice chats suddenly had the architecture of a public assembly.

When the Nepal government banned Instagram, YouTube, Twitter, and two dozen other platforms, young people jumped on VPNs and carried their movement onto Discord. The ban, meant to stifle dissent, instead turned a gaming app into a parliament-in-exile. On the platform, conversations moved quickly from outrage to decision. The bridge from chat app to cabinet hall was built almost overnight.

But the Nepal story isn’t just about infrastructure; it’s about culture. Memes weren’t an afterthought; they were the connective tissue of the movement.

The “distracted boyfriend” meme was remade with Oli as the boyfriend, corruption as the woman he’s staring at, and “the people” as the partner being ignored. TikToks of “Oli resign” chants remixed with Nepali folk beats turned slogans into dance tracks. Posters mimicked K-pop rally aesthetics and anime fanart, instantly legible to Gen Z in Kathmandu and the diaspora abroad.

Even the biting “NepoKids” edits, TikToks stitching together images of politicians’ children partying and tagging them as “nepo babies”, condensed years of frustration over corruption and nepotism into a hashtag. And it worked. 

Meanwhile, props to the Hami Nepal collective who also knew how fragile these movements can be in the age of disinformation. They set up a dedicated fact-check channel inside their Discord, where volunteers debunked rumours in real time.

When a photo circulated showing Gurung with the ousted foreign minister, they traced it back to a totally unrelated event. When rumours spread that Gurung wasn’t even Nepali but from Darjeeling, they released his citizenship card. Alongside fact-checks, the channel also posted hospital helplines for the injured as the crackdown grew violent. 

It’s striking: a Discord server was, at once, a parliament, a newsroom, and a relief helpline.

Nepal isn’t the first country to experiment with digital politics. Italy’s Five Star once ran member-only votes through its Rousseau platform. Iceland famously tried to crowdsource a new constitution draft online. But both of those were institutionalised and tightly managed processes.

Nepal’s was different. It was messy, extra-constitutional, born out of grief and anger. But it worked. The consensus inside a chatroom translated directly into political change.

The same feeds that carry protest memes also carry AI-generated videos rewriting Mughal history, or chatbots of dead Bollywood stars churning conspiracy theories. These are the everyday battles we report on at Decode — misinformation at scale, algorithmic rabbit holes, and narratives that split people apart before they can ever unite.

That’s why I’m cynical about a movement like Nepal’s taking root here. Our digital spaces are not just fragmented; they are weaponised. And whenever young people do manage to mobilise, the state has a quick playbook: internet shutdowns, platform bans, surveillance. The crackdown comes faster than the momentum.

Nepal’s youth have shown us that democracy can be hacked — not with code, but with culture, community, and connectivity. Aura farming may have started as a joke, but in Kathmandu it turned into a form of power. The open question is whether that power can last, or whether it will vanish once the memes stop circulating. 

Because if Kathmandu has revealed what’s possible, our feeds reveal what’s broken.

MESSAGE FROM OUR SPONSOR

How 433 Investors Unlocked 400X Return Potential

Institutional investors back startups to unlock outsized returns. Regular investors have to wait. But not anymore. Thanks to regulatory updates, some companies are doing things differently.

Take Revolut. In 2016, 433 regular people invested an average of $2,730. Today? They got a 400X buyout offer from the company, as Revolut’s valuation increased 89,900% in the same timeframe.

No wonder 10K+ everyday people are taking the chance on Pacaso.

Founded by a former Zillow exec, Pacaso’s co-ownership tech reshapes the $1.3T vacation home market. They’ve earned $110M+ in gross profit to date, including 41% YoY growth in 2024 alone. They even reserved the Nasdaq ticker PCSO.

The same institutional investors behind Uber, Venmo, and eBay backed Pacaso. And you can join them. But not for long. Pacaso’s investment opportunity ends September 18.

Invest While You Still Can

_{Paid advertisement for Pacaso’s Regulation A offering. Read the offering circular at invest.pacaso.com. Reserving a ticker symbol is not a guarantee that the company will go public. Listing on the NASDAQ is subject to approvals.}

🔥What Caught My Attention

Got a story to share or something interesting from your social media feed? Drop me a line, and I might highlight it in my next newsletter.

See you in your inbox, every other Wednesday at 12 pm!

Was this email forwarded to you? Subscribe