How did the Great Indian Brain Rot come into existence?
I personally was heavily invested in the Internet from the very beginning. Around 2010, I was living in several small towns in Rajasthan and there was traditional culture, but no popular culture. I had a desire to know about literature, philosophy, world cinema… At that time, the Internet came as an escape because I could then learn about European philosophers, obscure directors… The Internet developed my personality and my interest. At that time I used to call the Internet ‘the revenge of the lonely’. At that time, you can remain anonymous and have many types of information searched and collected. Also, you might have a very random ID like Rocky the Cockroach or something, which was interesting to me because I was also dealing with my Dalit identity at the time. I felt I could become anything, so I named myself Anurag Minus Verma. It doesn’t make any sense because I don’t have a last name. I wrote Anurag Minus Verma as a joke. I have had a lot of gratitude towards the Internet since the beginning.
Since I understand this medium very well because I have spent so much time on it, I thought that one day I would write something about it, decode it. After Jio, in what I call the ‘post-Jio world’ in the book, data became cheap. Then, some strange things started happening on the internet which were also a reflection of society. Initially, people thought that social media was very different from the real world so they would say things like, ‘How is caste possible on social media?’ ‘How is this possible on Instagram?’ ‘How is any misogynistic thing possible on social media?’ The Internet is a part of society, so whatever is offline will translate into the online world. So, there is no such distinction. I tried to understand society and the Internet became a very important tool. This became my own sociological history. But I didn’t want to look at it from too broad a perspective. I wanted to understand it from a subculture perspective. For example, there is a chapter on caste but I am not going down the usual route of Dalit versus upper caste. I am trying to understand the idea of creating caste mythology; How communities in Delhi, NCR are creating their own mythologies, their own songs, their own edits, and what it says about the society. Each chapter is attempting to better understand society through Internet culture. It is a study of Internet culture but mostly a sociological and philosophical study. It’s also from a very absurd lens, not some heavy-handed academic lens.
In line with that, I was looking forward to a more rigorous analysis of how the caste system has almost reinvented itself in the digital sphere. For example, when you are talking about the Elvish Yadav phenomenon the book raises it in a limited sense. Was this a conscious choice and do you plan to pursue it in a more expansive way in the future?
Probably not, because I recorded several episodes on caste (on my podcast), very detailed episodes on caste with popular and important scholars. So, in that sense, my archival project was there; Because everything that could be discussed was discussed. The second thing is that I do not like to pay attention to the things of upper caste teaching – their point of view; How do they understand caste? I will write on things that I personally find interesting. That’s why my podcasts aren’t like a primer on ‘how to understand privilege’. I try to assume my audience is intelligent. In that sense, I just want to explore what is unknown. If you want to understand caste, there are brilliant scholars, brilliant books already available. But my approach to this would be to understand it from an absurd point of view. I think this is my signature.
At one point you mention Camus and Cariminati in the same context! What was your experience like translating your distinctive satirical wit into a completely different long-term medium?
I’ll tell you how highly online creators think; They want validation quickly. I call this ‘dopamine celibacy’ (dopamine abstinence). So, I write this line that I am proud of and I want to share it with the world, but I can’t. I have to wait for two years! The hardest part was that I had to resist! I couldn’t put it there (immediately)! Delaying that gratification was the hardest part. But once I started writing it, I got into the rhythm of it. at Haruki Murakami What I talk about when I talk about runningHe says, when you start running it seems difficult initially, then you get into a trance-like state. And then you don’t understand what is happening to your body. Similarly, there is a very popular story of a sailor who goes into a very dangerous race and comes very close to the finish line. But something happens, he keeps going in a very different direction because he has no interest in ending it. The writing process is very similar. When you start writing, you go into a trance-like state. My book is not a highly researched book, but there are many people who write portraits or memoirs or biographies and do 10 years of research. I always wondered how he could write something for 10 years. Then I realized that this is the process; This is how it works. Once you get into it, you just go with the flow.
The book has received very good response across various segments. Initially, did you have a target readership in mind?
I thought it would reach a mostly urban audience. I was always very suspicious of scholars and journalists. I really wanted to understand how they would see it. Because it has a very absurd lens… and it’s not the typical ‘literary book’. It also challenges that whole ‘high art, low art’ thing. That’s one of my philosophies – as you said, “Cariminati and Camus”. I do this constantly through my work. I want to challenge the hierarchy of what is high art, what is low art. I was very worried about it. But, surprisingly, Even in Hindustan Times, it was placed as one of the best books of 2025 (HT editor Dhrubo Jyoti’s pick of the year).; And even in the Hindu frontline. I was quite surprised by this. This means that people are studying sociology from very different perspectives.
You write that creators and the Internet have evolved from being disruptors to now mirroring “the world of audiences.” What does this say about the oft-cited revolutionary politics of the Internet?
After 2014 or maybe around 2015-2016, a lot of things were happening. Earlier, people were not afraid to make fun of the government on the internet. Tanmay Bhatt will make/launch videos making fun of the government. At that time it was good to be anti-establishment. But, after some time, when our social and political reality changed, it became very difficult to make fun of any political personality. Another aspect that changed was that social media became highly monetized. It became a medium through which you are now catering only to brands. A lot of people who used to do any kind of socio-political commentary realized that if I put something on a socio-political situation then chances are that brands will not come to me maybe till this month. A manager once said to me, ‘We want to work with you but can you minimize the socio-political issues? Because if they see your last reel or you make a joke about some political figure then chances are that you will never get any brand. So, I deliberately made a choice. If I remove it, all the edges of my work will be lost. I can’t do this. Now the Internet is very different. You would never have seen any popular influential person, popular creator making any kind of political statement. There is a lot of scope for disagreement in America. But sadly there is no possibility of this in India. We just have relativity nonsense going on in the popular sphere. Which is very sad.
There are threads of Nietzsche and nihilism running throughout the book. Is that the lens you typically use to analyze the abyss of the World Wide Web?
In general, I try to understand the world through an absurdly nihilistic lens. I am also very careful not to go into that bitter and negative (space). It is important to understand the difference between bitter, negative and absurd, nihilistic. I enjoy nihilism because if you feel there is no inherent meaning in anything then you can start to look at everything through a more playful lens. Because there is no burden of meaning, no burden of ‘this could be something important’. Now I don’t consider anything important, so I can analyze things as they are.
There are texts that authors continue to update, bringing out new editions as things change. Have you considered doing the same with your book, especially since AI is just beginning to transform the social media sphere?
If possible I should write something on AI because one of the most interesting things I have seen recently is that there are many AI videos of women; AI videos made not by real women but by men, very random AI videos. These women look like powerful people. But Indians don’t know that they are AI and now their followers are in lakhs. They also get brand deals. In the comment section, men write ‘marry me’, ‘you are looking hot’. This is very absurd. There is no real man; There’s no one there but they’re still getting brand deals. That kind of passivity is something I’d be very interested in writing about. And now that AI is getting so close to reality, it will be interesting to see the future of the Internet. I would be interested in writing about it.
Simar Bhasin is a literary critic and research scholar based in Delhi. Her essay ‘A Tale of Resistance: Desire and Dissent in Selma Dabbagh’s Short Fiction’ was awarded ‘Highly Commended’ by the Wasafiri Essay Prize 2024.
