KOCHI: Their’s one of the most popular trolls; from political satires to pure comedy. They juxtapose clippings from popular movies to make a point on political and social issues through humour. But the backroom persons behind one of the most popular social media network ‘International Chalu Union’ or ICU are not behind the curtains anymore.
At the ongoing National Cartoon and Caricature Festival, Cari Toon 2016 here, ICU and its team were officially launched into the public sphere as they occupied the pride of place beside some of the country’s best known cartoonists, caricaturists and they were simply awestruck.
“Being branded a ‘budhijeevi’ (intellectual) is the last thing we want. I have no idea what to speak,” said one, referring to the session ‘Smiling Social Media’, where the ICU contributors shared their experience on their origins.
ICI, one of the largest Malayalam comedy platform working across all social media networks, especially on Facebook and Twitter, was formed in 2007 and about 60 youngsters are behind the social media phenomenon. The team works on edits and monitors the content, after which the troll gets released with the ICU logo on it.
Being an online platform, this is their first official offline launch.
“The audience here are are all professional cartoonists, animators and caricature artists. They are the right audience for our first launch. We are amateurs in the field. This kind of exposure is just what we need,” says Nithya Punnackal, one of the admins and a freelance journalist and writer by herself.
ICU originated as an Orkut community and later on rose in fame with their Facebook group in 2011. The response that they received as a social networking group inspired them to start a page of their own. Making themselves an audience friendly page, they received a huge number of supporters and well wishers and soon moved to other platforms like YouTube, Twitter, Instagram and Google plus.
Initially, started by a group of friends, ICU expanded with the increasing number of people who got involved including professional cartoonists. Their subject matters were mainly politics, films, media and general affairs. Being a crowd resourced platform, the admins of the page are the ones who monitor the trolls that need be published.
“It is not a profit based union. We do have a registered trademark but we are not based as a company. Those who work behind this platform are all from different corners of the world having their own jobs. Our director, Roshan Thomas, is in US and he connects to us from there. ICU is a crowd resourced and crowd managed platform. The public contributes to it and we stay open to changes on the go,” Nithya adds.
“Cartoon is different, caricature is different and troll is entirely different. Cartoons and caricatures may not be understood by all and the depiction is sometimes hard to be caught by the common people. But when it comes to trolls, it is understood by those involved and the general public equally. At the same time, cartoons require talented artists but any person with a sense of humour and general awareness can create a troll,” says Aardhra, a member.
An android app will be made available in a few months.