One viral reel at a time, how Vijay resonated with Gen Z at Jantar Mantar

The Tamil Nadu Chief Minister upended the Dravidian duopoly just two months earlier, propelled to power by his legions of young fans who saw in him not just their matinee idol but also the outsider who could clean up the political system they believed had stopped serving their interests. Since then, Vijay’s image as a leader of action has been burnished by viral social media videos, many of them making patently false claims and blending fact and fiction to buttress the point.

The videos follow a familiar visual language: Vijay in his office, making speeches, montages of cheering crowds, and footage of government action cut together with music from his films and bold Hindi captions announcing dramatic policy decisions. They blend genuine government announcements seamlessly with fabricated claims to project Vijay as a decisive leader capable of solving long-standing problems through swift executive action. These videos have racked up tens of millions of views across Facebook, Instagram, and YouTube, introducing the actor-turned-politician to audiences in the north, many of whom vaguely know him as a Tamil film star — if they know him at all. Many of these freshly minted admirers of Vijay were in the crowd at Jantar Mantar, adding their voice to those fed up with the status quo.

“I have seen videos saying he waived hospital bills. He’s like the Balen Shah of India,” said Siddharth, a student protester from Kanpur preparing for competitive examinations. Standing with a placard demanding Union Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan’s resignation, he compared the Tamil Nadu Chief Minister to Nepal’s Prime Minister, who rose from a career in rap to political power on the back of a Gen Z-driven movement.

Siddharth said he wanted a leader like Vijay — someone who could take decisive action and challenge the existing political order. He appeared surprised when told that the viral video claiming Vijay had ordered hospitals to waive treatment bills was false.

Rajesh Babu, 28, from Bihar, was another protester who had fallen for a false claim in a video on Vijay. He said he had travelled to the demonstration because his brother was affected by the Bihar Police constable recruitment paper leak. Like Siddharth, he admired Vijay for supposedly waiving hospital bills, not knowing the widely shared video was based on a false claim.

Popular Instagram creator who goes by her profile name Alpha.Omega209 received more than 30 million views on one video on the Tamil Nadu government announcements, including the creation of the Singappen women’s protection force for rapid response to crimes against women. However, the video made a false claim that politicians’ children would be required to study only in government schools.

“The claim about politicians’ children studying in government schools turned out to be misinformation that was spreading on social media. I always cross-check mainstream news and viral topics before creating content because I value factual accuracy. I have already posted a correction to clarify this specific point for my audience,” she told The Indian Express.

She said Vijay had become a “high-engagement subject” because “people even in the North are fascinated by his larger-than-life image translating into strict on-ground governance”.

TVK spokesperson Felix Gerald said the online attention was a natural extension of Vijay’s popularity. “Influencers talk about him because he generates traffic. He built the Vijay People’s Movement nearly two decades before becoming Chief Minister,” Gerald said.

Impact of social media

Unlike previous generations of southern film stars who entered politics before the social media era, Vijay’s rise has unfolded at a time when short videos and reels are an effective medium for carrying a regional leader’s image hundreds and thousands of kilometres beyond his or her home state. This is why Vijay has become a familiar name for many in the North with little exposure to Tamil films and politics.

Film critic Sreedhar Pillai said Vijay benefited from the consistency of his on-screen image. Unlike Kamal Haasan, whose career was marked by frequent experimentation with different kinds of roles, Vijay largely stuck to the template of a hero taking on a corrupt political or administrative system. That helped reinforce a political persona audiences could easily associate with his real-life ambitions, something Pillai believes contributed to Vijay’s stronger political appeal.

Congress Rajya Sabha MP Praveen Chakravarty, who had advocated for his party’s alliance with TVK even before the elections, said he was struck by how frequently young people from Haryana, Uttar Pradesh and Bihar spoke about Vijay while he was visiting the student protest in Delhi. He said the trend was evident elsewhere too. In May, Chakravarty was surprised when students at Ashoka University, where he is a visiting faculty member, welcomed him with TVK’s campaign song and whistles bearing the party’s election symbol.

“The youth understand that Vijay and his MLAs are inexperienced. Yet they want to give him a chance and they know very clearly what they don’t want: the established parties,” Chakravarty said, cautioning it was still too early to interpret the interest as Vijay’s emergence as a national political figure.