Nepal, Aug. 1 -- Aclip from Kathmandu, September 2025. A young man plants himself in front of a police water cannon, letting the water jet smash into him. Ten months later the same frame is circulating in Indian feeds as fan art, recoloured and captioned: Let's go Indian GenZ.

However many in India, including the Cockroach Janta Party, have tried to say that what happened there this month is fundamentally different from Nepal, Bangladesh or Sri Lanka, there are parallels. Especially in the world of memes.

Several genres of reels have gone across the border. In one, an Indian creator walks through Kathmandu praising the civic sense of Nepalis as evidence about his own country's failures.

In another, a Nepali creator films an Indian tou...