THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: For many Keralites, the recent power cuts have meant darkness. On social media, however, they have produced something rather entertaining -- AI-generated videos of Chief Minister V D Satheesan dancing to the recent chartbuster ‘Ala Bolelo’ from the upcoming Tamil film ‘Jailer 2’. Seen to be leading a team of KSEB employees, the AI-generated video’s comment section was flooded with praise for the creator and criticism of the government for the ongoing power crisis in the state.
What Satheesan responded to on Saturday as “a dance better than film stars” is just one of the many AI-generated social media memes criticising the ‘pookie’ CM and the government over the unannounced power cuts. From dances to fast Tamil numbers like ‘Appadi Podu’, alongside Power Minister Sunny Joseph, to possessing a ‘superpower’ of cutting electricity, satirical content featuring the chief minister has flooded social media in the past few days.
Even a dialogue of the late actor Salim Kumar from the film ‘Chattambinadu’, in which he asks for a petromax light, has been recreated with the chief minister himself. The protest-turned-satire was mentioned by Satheesan while speaking at an event in Kochi on Saturday.
“I saw a video on social media, where I was leading a group dance. I was stunned, I was dancing better than Mohanlal and my friend Tamil Nadu Chief Minister Vijay,” Satheesan had said.
Opposition camps, meanwhile, have coined terms such as ‘Pookie Cut’ and ‘Indira Cut’, and have shared videos of people driving through affected areas with announcements and anti-UDF parody songs. Behind the near-perfect video of the chief minister grooving to the trending ‘Ala Bolelo’ song were two Thrissur-based youngsters, Abijith K S and Akhil Nellikkal, for their Instagram page ‘AI Kavala’.
The video crossed 1.7 crore views on Instagram within two days of being posted. Taking just five hours to turn the chief minister into a dancer, Abijith said that contrary to their concerns the video received appreciation even from some Congress supporters.
“It was Akhil’s idea to have a video like this. We initially thought of making a video of Power Minister Sunny Joseph sir, but later we decided to ‘cast’ Satheesan sir into it. We had multiple songs in our mind, but since Ala Bolelo is trending all over, and the film too is getting released soon, we proceeded with it,” Abijith told TNIE.
Pointing out that the chief minister’s positive response came as a breather for them, the duo also hoped they would be able to see him soon.
Talking about his AI video of Sunny Joseph shaking his leg with Satheesan to the popular ‘Appadi Podu’, content creator Fayas Ahammed said that even though he is not getting negative feedback for the work, LDF and UDF supporters are fighting among themselves in the comments section.
“Even when people decided to post videos with Satheesan sir alone, I thought I needed to include the power minister too. After all, memes are also our forms of protest,” Fayas said.
At the same time, the creators are aware that AI-generated content can also be widely misused, and urged that people to use technology for healthy intentions. While AI-generated memes appear on one side, new comments have surfaced in the old posts of Congress leaders including Satheesan and Home Minister Ramesh Chennithala, in which they criticised the power cuts during the LDF government’s tenure.
