Battle for 2014 gets a funny twist online

Whether it is the muffler-clad Arvind Kejriwal lookalike or the dialogue delivery of a wannabe Arnab Goswami, online political spoofs never fail to surprise with their creative audacity.

With internet penetration rising each day, online spoofs on political parties and politicians have become the flavour of the season ahead of the Lok Sabha election. While political spoofs themselves are not a novelty, the fact that this content is now available on-demand online is driving the genre's popularity.

The Viral Fever (TVF), the brains behind the infamous Bollywood Aam Admi Party Arnab's Qtiyapa say that the Indian audience is very sensitive. A creative head has to take care of innumerable things before releasing a spot.

"If you try to give gyaan to the junta, they get repelled. If you make it funny, they watch it for fun and get the message," TVF's founder and creative experiments officer Arunabh Kumar told dna.

The 16-minute video, which has gone viral on YouTube, shows lookalikes of news anchor Arnab Goswami, AAP's Arvind Kejriwal and BJP's Meenakshi Lekhi among others. The lookalikes talk about a new production house, which claims to change Indian cinema forever.

The video has been watched over 21 lakh times and has been shared by over 1.9 lakh people on Facebook alone since it released on February 6 2014.

"These videos are intelligent and hardcore political satire. The best part is that they respect the dignity of the medium. Such efforts are a window to the future of both journalism and entertainment, which will be mostly internet-based in the future," said Akhtar Malick, a social entrepreneur.

Kumar cited a decline in television viewing as one of the key reasons behind the popularity of online videos. "The Indian youth does not sit in front of TV sets to watch their favourite soap opera. Its the online revolution. Everything they want to watch, they watch it on YouTube," he said. An internal TVF survey adds weight to his statement; 75% of India's online population is under the age of 35, says the survey. It also says that there has been a 27% increase in the Indian online video audience.

Another agency, All Indian Bakchod (AIB), which created Nayak 2: The Common Man Rises, says their only point behind such content is to vocalise what they feel. "We have a cuss word in our name. So if you do not like our name, you will not like our content," Tanmay Bhat, AIB co-founder told dna.

The internet gives these agencies what TV does not. A free platform.

While TVF draws inspiration from global shows such as Friends and the Big Bang Theory, AIB follow news shows and political developments to come up with ideas. "More often than not, we give complete freedom to the creative heads (in terms of content), but we have huge limitations in our country," said Bhatt. "We want to talk about region and similar stuff but they are too sensitive to be talked about. So we take calculated risk," he added.

Both their YouTube channels are soon going to come up with fresh videos. TVF plans to release one on political awareness, telling people why they should vote. AIB's new video will be about a fight between Kejriwal and Narendra Modi.