The mindf*ck is a book outlining the Cambridge Analytica scam influencing mass public opinion. It discusses how people in Great Britain were influenced to vote for BREXIT and how public opinion were dissuaded in the 2016 US Presidential Elections. This book is still available in multiple channels to buy. And, buying this or not is your own discretion.

However, if you wish to understand how social media can influence public opinion en masse, and indulge them into an action that they might eventually claim to not have done themselves. Sadly, this is how Tamil Nadu elected its government this time and this will continue in the future too, which is way more scary.

Initial signs of Opinion Building

The infamous Karur Incident

In one of our previous blogs – The Rise of the next Political Superstar of Tamil Nadu, we did speak about the mass support Vijay and TVK received. It is rather amusing because people did not care about their mothers losing their lives, their sons being lost for no reason.

17 women, 14 men and 10 children lost their lives. Most of the ones who died were between the age group of 18-30 and there was an outlier too i.e., a two-year old child lost mercilessly only for the grand debut of a superstar. Fast forward to this day, no one remembers Karur incident.

Vijay and TVK forgot the controversy as power is in their hands now. Judiciary is not concerned about this anymore. The ones who cheered for Vijay’s swearing-in moment failed to remember this incident.

Unflinching Support of Women

During his campaign trail, Vijay’s wife announced her separation with him citing multiple reasons. For a politician this is a big risk. Public opinion, especially the opinion of women matters here. Questions like – Why is she leaving now? What did he do to her? Did he have an affair? All these would be raised. But in case of Vijay, these questions were not raised so widely. Rather the ones opposing him were targeted in a merciless manner. Ironically, one woman claimed in a video, “He has sisters, mothers, and many like us. We could be his wives too, so what. We all stand by him.”

An affair with the Governor causing potential unrest

Post his marginal victory i.e., without a majority, the current Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu (Joesh Vijay) approached Indian National Congress for support. After review within the party they agreed to extend their support. However, it was not sufficient as the halfway mark is 118 and any party without this number cannot stake claim to form the government.

An average politician would have approached other parties or one major Dravidian party and asked them to extend their support (before staking claim). Quite amusingly, Joseph Vijay approached the governor and said that we have the numbers and that will be proved in the assembly. Yet, the governor insisted that he wants proper proof.

And Vijay kept visiting the governor back and forth with multiple request letters. Yet, nothing materialised as the number of supporting MLAs were not produced properly, according to the governor. Post this, a backlash occurred in the political circle, which claimed that the governor has no right to stand against the people’s mandate.

While the media was busy covering all of this, something else was unfolding in the public circle. On one hand, videos of women sobbing for Vijay kept circulating. Then select social media accounts were seen posting reels or posts supporting Vijay.

Reportedly on the ground, young adults were discussing or should we say throwing open threats that a large unrest is in cards if Vijay is not becoming the Chief Minister. All of this intensified when there were media reports on a possible DMK-ADMK coalition to counter the rise of Vijay.

Yet, unrests never happened as VCK and the Communists extended their support unconditionally. The former was also subjected to a backlash when his supporters claimed to have not extended their support. Apparently, he was seeking a deputy chief minister post only to receive even more backlash.

The surprising factor

A party cadre can cry and if you are a hard core supporter, you may as well do so. But, why would you circulate your video to masses? And, looking at these sobbing clips, even the ones who didn’t care, paid more attention and began declaring threats on the governor and the central government.

While people in the political circle and psephologists are wondering what actually went wrong in their predictions, TVK and Vijay have been doing this exactly for the past few years. Those multiple visits were cited as immaturity in the national media by a few and some criticised the governor. However, those criticisms subsided when Thirumavalavan was reportedly asking for a Deputy Chief Minister post and got a backlash post which he extended unconditional support.

When everything became abrupt

As of now, everything seems to be so abrupt in the public domain as every TVK MLA, Minister and Vijay himself is fully dominating the reels space. Right from releasing Turtle hatchlings into the sea to MLAs monitoring the day-to-day operations of primary health centres are making rounds. The other most amusing factor is that of Vijay carrying his own lunchbox to work (and this exactly what Aam Aadmi Party did in the initial days).

All these have made it more abrupt that Vijay and TVK are investing in mass influencer marketing strategies and social media retargeting ads, which is widely being discussed now. This is where leveraging the dopamine effect of every individual comes into play and that’s how public opinion was formed. When people get a dopamine hit, they pay careful attention to every word that’s being said.

People were glued to their Insta handle all night seeking an update on what next. Rumours were spread on multiple possibilities

With all this, people are gradually experiencing fatigue and every former minister and veteran politicians are questioning on the heavy social media presence rather than real work. However, they’re waiting for a major development to promote yet again, which can poke public sentiment and and increase the dopamine levels of every human in Tamil Nadu.

What can we do to stay out of this?

The best thing for any human to stay out of this vicious cycle is to delete all your social media handles and focus on your real-life problems. Seek a hobby, indulge in some mindfulness meditation, go for a long walk (don’t listen to his movie songs) and speak with your family or friends (keep politics away).

All of this sounds funny now, but this will not only hook you to that device, but let you indulge in actions that you may regret for the rest of your life. Hence, Tamil Nadu’s Cambridge Analytica moment is not far away. And those dopamine hits among every young adult means a civil war.