00:00When you think of Gen Z, what comes to mind?
00:03Lazy, unserious, obsessed with situationships, boundaries, block, delete.
00:09Well, Gen Z in Nepal just set boundaries on corruption, nepotism and unemployment.
00:14And that too, in just 48 hours, the Prime Minister and the Home Minister resigned.
00:19So how in the world did this actually start?
00:22With a hashtag.
00:24Hashtag NepoKids exploded online,
00:26exposing the luxurious lifestyles of politicians' children,
00:30while one in five young Nepalese struggled with unemployment,
00:34a minister's son posing by a Christmas tree,
00:37a Miss Nepal flaunting her glamour,
00:40the daughter-in-law of a former PM flashing wealth for angry youth,
00:45these weren't just posts, they were insults.
00:49On the surface, it looked like a protest against the government-imposed social media ban.
00:54But the revolt was bigger than petty jealousy on Instagram.
00:59Nepal has been stuck in a political revolving door.
01:02Since 2008, they have had 14 different governments,
01:06but they have all come from the same three political parties.
01:10So what happens when a government tries to shut down dissent by banning social media?
01:15Well, Gen Z didn't even blink.
01:18They simply migrated to Discord.
01:19Now, if you're not a gamer, you might be like, what's Discord?
01:24It's basically a chat app built for gamers to talk while playing.
01:29On one Discord server called Youth Against Corruption,
01:33over 100,000 young people debated, organized, and coordinated in real time.
01:39Picture this, thousands in Nepal, plus the diaspora abroad,
01:44tuning in, arguing, even live-streaming debates to YouTube when servers crashed.
01:50It was like a digital parliament, except run by Gen Z.
01:54After hours of discussion, the protesters voted for an interim leader.
01:58But instead of picking one of their own,
02:01they turned to a 73-year-old, former Supreme Court Chief Justice, Sushila Karki.
02:08Why?
02:08Because her record symbolized something rare in Nepali politics,
02:13integrity and resistance against corruption.
02:16Back in 2017, Parliament actually tried to impeach her
02:20after her court overturned their choice of police chief.
02:24She insisted on seniority and appointed the highest-ranking officer instead.
02:30Even the UN called the impeachment attempt politically motivated,
02:34and it was eventually dropped.
02:37That kind of defiance against political meddling earned her respect,
02:41and now, years after retiring, she's back,
02:44this time as Nepal's interim prime minister.
02:47So what started as memes and hashtags about Nepal kids
02:51ended up toppling a government.
02:53Gen Z, the generation accused of being lazy and unserious,
02:58just used discord to decide the future of a nation.
03:01The question is, will this digital revolution last?
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