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Viral Rap: Protest Songs on YouTube

Sagorika Singha Feb 29, 2024

Between December 2019 and January 2020, several protest songs against the CAA emerged from Assam and were released on various YouTube channels. The discussion generated around the YouTube protest songs reflects the ingrained anxiety about “illegal migrants”, which is then concretised as this genre of songs propagates the criteria of “ethnic Assamese” identity.

Platform Proficiency: Influencers to Aspiring Creators

Sagorika Singha Mar 05, 2024

Through his instructional videos, Dimpu Baruah shifts the experience of community empowerment in a neoliberal creator economy where garnering engagement online depends on one’s competence in using the platform.

Memes Beyond Borders: A Bangladeshi Meme Icon in India

Sagorika Singha Mar 11, 2024

Hero Alom became a sensation as a meme icon, which in this day and age is arguably a desirable social currency. Through the figure of Alom, one can consider the dichotomies of “good” and “bad” art and transnational/intertextual media.

Films Beyond Borders: Priya Naresh’s Small-Time Cinema

Anoushkha Prasad Jun 04, 2024

Priya Naresh's documentary Small-Time Cinema (2022) follows two YouTube filmmaking groups–Assamese Chemistry from Sipajhar in Assam, India, and One Team Media from Hazara Town in Quetta, Pakistan and chronicles their journey of creating films about their own communities and issues, while also preserving their language and complex social and cultural histories.

What Art Memes to Me: Memes and Art/Memes as Art?

Sagorika Singha Jun 26, 2024

Memes offer a mirror image of our volatile present as much as their avant-garde heritage, which can be connected to their innate subversive potential and their cultivation by the online subcultural community. These digital objects can stand in for alternative groups both in a negative as well as positive way—as new tools of solidarity for minorities and other marginalised people as well as hateful tools for the rest.

A Fragmented History: Contemporary Filmmaking in Assam

Sagorika Singha Aug 09, 2024

The last decade can be considered one of the most prolific periods in Assamese film production. Many of them are recognised and awarded for their excellence both nationally and internationally. One common factor in all of them has been their funding source, at least for their first venture. Filmmakers including Bhaskar Hazarika, Reema Borah, Kenny Basumatary and Rima Das, to name a few, all crowdfunded or self-funded their first films.

On a Schizophrenic Viewing Practice: In Conversation with EXCISE DEPT

Upasana Das Apr 04, 2025

In the first of a three-part interview with Upasana Das, the members of EXCISE DEPT—Rounak Maiti, Karanjit Singh, Siddhant Vetekar and Andrew Sabu—discuss the origins and evolution of their audio-visual collective.