KOCHI: In mid-March, the Instagram handle of Popcult (@popcult.tribe) posted a picture which gave a comprehensive definition for the term ‘Feminichi’ (a slang word for a feminist). According to the digital media startup, the term means ‘a title conferred to any woman who has an opinion’. The post went viral online after it was featured on the social media pages of celebrities.
A few days later came another post. This time, Popcult Dictionary decided to define ‘kuru pottal’ (another bigoted Malayalam term) as ‘the burning feeling inside a Mallu misogynist’s chest when Parvathy’s new movie releases’. The new digital media startup Popcult, launched on March 1, is taking social media by storm with their original content. The page, as of March 31, has over 33K followers.
The brainchild of Charles Andrews, Arya Prakash, Aashiq Bava and Kishan Bhas, Popcult has been envisioned as the voice of the millennial Malayalees. “In Malayalam digital space, gender and caste have been portrayed inaccurately. Many online pages are involved in representing gender and caste in a stereotyped manner,” says Charles, a media professional.
Having discussed the idea with Arya, a Hyderabad-based professional with an American multi-national company, the founders of the page realised the dearth of Malayalam digital space with regard to popular culture.
“The foundation of humour in pop culture has been limited to memes for some time now. We realised there was a scope in exploring the different sides of it. Thus began a critical brainstorming session on what can be added to popularise the pop culture,” says Arya. Popcult now has a clear vision: To make the Malayali pop culture universal. After all, Malayalees are said to be literally everywhere.
In hopes to understand the current popular culture, the founders of Popcult did a survey of the existing platforms.
“We realised gender disparity is worse in many of these social media pages. Our research showed the audience of most pages were 80 per cent men and the rest women. Obviously, the content on these pages will cater to the majority. And when a woman voices her opinion on these pages, there are high chances to get trolled or their inbox filled with profanity,” says Charles.
This paved the way to the introduction of Popcult Dictionary. “Our objective behind this is to address these issues and bring out wholesome content. Popcult Dictionary gives definitions to those terms that represent bigotry. This was readily accepted by people and a new form of discussion started on the platforms in a very little time,” he says.
Arya runs the Popcult Dictionary section. For her, the popularity of the section was a major confidence booster. “One girl sent us a heart-touching message. She was going through some troubles. And the definition for one of the bigoted terms on the Popcult Dictionary brought closure to her problems,” she says.
Apart from the dictionary, Popcult also has MangoPeel News (satirical news) and Tinderella (Tinder profiles of iconic movie characters). “The point of differentiation for the company is its originality and uniqueness. We try not to get saturated,” says Arya.