In the wake of the Gen Z uprising and a new interim government, a viral trend, ‘Expose Jholey’, is sweeping social media, shredding the old political playbook.

Where the ‘Nepo Kid’ trend earlier this month skewered the children of alleged corrupt politicians flaunting privilege and wealth, the spotlight has now shifted from heirs of power to the rank-and-file. These are the loyal cadres, the unquestioning foot soldiers who clap, chant, and defend, no matter how deep the rot.

The blind allegiance of ‘jholeys,’ creators argue, has shielded leaders from accountability for decades and sustained their faulty system.

‘Jholey’ is a derisive term for those who display unquestioning loyalty, celebrate conformity, and refuse to challenge their party’s leadership and faults.

For a nation still mourning the 74 people killed in the Gen Z protests, creators say the TikTok trend ‘Expose Jholey’, more than satire, is a rebellion against blind loyalty and a refusal to let unquestioning obedience bury the truth. By ridiculing unquestioning party loyalists, the trend reflects youths’ impatience with entrenched political practices and their insistence on accountability.

The trend targets top political leaders and their loyalists, including UML chair KP Sharma Oli, Nepali Congress President Sher Bahadur Deuba, Maoist chair Pushpa Kamal Dahal, and other influential figures such as Shankar Pokharel, Arzu Rana Deuba, Mahesh Basnet, Ramesh Lekhak, Dipak Khadka, and Barshaman Pun.

On TikTok, posts show images and videos of loyalists standing beside political leaders at rallies or public events, with satirical and trendy soundtracks like ‘The winner takes it all’, ‘Money, Money, Money’, ‘Bella Ciao’, and ‘Jhola Gang Myachis’.

The trend has spread rapidly, with individual videos racking up over 30,000 likes and comment sections filled with messages such as: “Expose the jholeys of corrupt leaders,” and “Socially boycott the jholeys.”

Clips commonly lampoon party workers trailing behind their bosses, mocking them as sycophants, ‘rented noise’ or members of the ‘masu bhat club (the rice-and-meat club)’.

A central aim of the Gen Z uprising was to end the ‘musical chair’ of power, in which Oli, Dahal, and Deuba rotated the prime ministership.

Yet even after the Gen Z uprising, which saw the loss of 74 lives, the Nepali Congress, CPN-UML, and Maoist Centre have made no significant changes to their leadership.

In Congress, the party general secretaries Gagan Thapa and Bishwo Prakash Sharma have called for reforms, including Deuba’s exit, but senior leaders close to Deuba resist. The UML shows no sign of replacing Oli, now accused of the 74 deaths during the protests, while the Maoist Centre’s special convention is widely expected to keep Dahal in control.

Across parties, the rank and file remain unwilling to challenge the old guard.

TikTok creators argue that the entrenched lack of remorse and accountability among Nepal’s old parties and their leaders’ stubborn refusal to change has fueled the ‘Expose Jholey’ trend.

Instead of reckoning with their role in the Gen Z protests, senior leaders have shifted blame, staged desperate comebacks, and sought to glorify their political re-emergence. Their blind followers, marching in lockstep, have become central targets of satire.

Among the most lampooned figures is Mahesh Basnet, a former UML lawmaker. In social media posts and public remarks, Basnet has dismissed the Gen Z movement by equating it with terrorism, the Taliban, and jallads (executioners).

The satire has also spread to leaders’ recent public appearances. On September 23, Oli made his first public appearance following the protests. In Gundu, Bhaktapur, Oli received a stream of party leaders and cadres who came to pay respects, sit with him, and pose for photographs before leaving.

On TikTok, these visits quickly became fodder for satire. The “Jholey” trend singles out those cadres, mocked as sycophants, for their eagerness to be seen at Oli’s side despite public anger at the political establishment.

Similarly, the campaign has latched onto the September 16 appearance of Dahal when he visited the Maoist Centre’s central office in Koteshwar, Parisdanda.

His speech vowing to rebuild has become one of the major contents for the trend: “Much was destroyed… The new office will be a grand building, created with the support of party members from across the country and abroad.”

These entourages of Oli and Dahal at recent appearances are spliced together with footage of sheep herds, the leaders rebranded as “shepherds returning home.”

One viral voice-over, layered onto clips of cadres trailing behind their leaders, mimics a pastoral documentary: “The shepherds have begun descending to the lowlands—after spending nearly four months by the lake during the monsoon season, setting up camps with their livestock, they are now moving downhill.”

AI-generated clips even show young people in “Gen Z Nepal” T-shirts, urging viewers: “Wherever you see jhola (bags), share their photos in the comments, expose them.”

Many posts go further, calling for “exposing jholeys even if they are your relatives” and urging users to block family members who display uncritical party loyalty.

The word ‘jholey’ was trending in June for different reasons.

On June 2, then Prime Minister KP Sharma Oli launched what came to be known as a “jhole” campaign. A poster showed Oli against Nepal’s map and flag with the tagline: “Ma jhole ho (I am Jhole)” and the message: “It is more honourable to carry a bag for the country’s development than to be a slave of a feudal family.”

CPN-UML cadres, including Bishnu Prasad Paudel, Shankar Pokharel, Bishnu Rimal, Prithvi Subba Gurung, and Mahesh Basnet, embraced the label as a badge of loyalty, creating the “I am Jholey” trend.

Ironically, those same posters and slogans of different leaders are now being repurposed in the “Expose Jholey” movement, turning what was once a declaration of devotion into a meme of ridicule.

Gen Z, along with youth groups, influencers, and content creators, have amplified the jholey trend, framing it as a natural follow-up to the “Nepo Kid” campaign.

Their message is clear: if political heirs were called out for privilege, now loyal cadres who chant slogans for discredited parties must face scrutiny. Many videos urge that the campaign continue “until every household and loyalist understands their party’s faults.”

Many creators and social media users say that the campaign is also a moral duty to ensure that the sacrifice of the 74 killed in the protests is not forgotten.