Using children to go viral: Who cares about its impact on their long-term well-being?

Before going viral on TikTok, Bahar Chamling Rai from Belaka of Udayapur was famous just in his village. Rai has grown up in the age of social media, and he will go viral soon day as people are trying to make this child a celebrity, not by making him sing any children’s songs or having talents like dancing or any child-friendly skill, but by making him say words like ‘sasurali’ (in-law’s house), ‘saali’ (wife’s younger sister), ‘whiskey’, and ‘beer’.

Perhaps, Rai started repeating the words from the parody Sasurali Jaane Ho after his elders. Indian state of Nagaland’s Minister of Higher and Technical Education and Tribal Affairs Tenzing Imna Along, who is very active on social media, also retweeted the video of Rai with the caption “Just need this much confidence in life.” The video has been viewed over 500,000 times from the minister’s handle alone with over 4,000 tweets.