For those who find themselves scrolling down reels on Instagram often, coming across the recent “Moye Moye” trend is inevitable. Originally a Serbian song titled ‘Džanum’ performed by Teya Dora, it is now a viral comic trend in India that satirises persons with disabilities. Dora’s Serbian original (which translates to ‘my nightmares’) is about nightmares and depression and has the lyrics “Moye More”, which Indian social media has twisted into “Moye Moye”.
From content creators to Bollywood actors, this audio has been shared several times, all for the use of making parody reels where one character pretends not to have arms while other characters circle, breaking into dance at the chorus. The reels are meant to depict a sad situation in a comedic manner.
The original video of this song was uploaded on YouTube a few months ago. Since then, it has garnered 58 million views. From Dolly Singh, and Uorfi Javed, to even the Delhi Police are creating videos on this beat across Instagram, Facebook, YouTube and TikTok.
Dolly Singh's video has her dancing around Uorfi's hand being stuck in an elaborate costume, whereas Divya Kapoor in another video is seen tucking her arms in her coat as others dance around her. The keyword Moye Moye has been used by Shraddha Kapoor, Salman Khan and others.
Even the Delhi Police hopped on the trend and shared a warning against rash driving on X with 'Moye Moye' playing in the background of the video. “Gaadi par control na khoyen, nahi toh ho sakta hai Moye Moye.. #DelhiPoliceCares,” Delhi Police wrote as the caption.
However, what may seem harmless at first glance, is considerably offensive to people with disabilities and has not been received well by disability activists.
Decode spoke to 6 persons with disabilities who brought to the forefront all that has gone wrong with this trend and the reel-making culture in general and how content portraying disabilities has been accepted as comedic from the very start; be it television advertisements or big Bollywood films.
Riddhi, a university student, came across the trend when she saw a group of students recording a reel to the song. “The reel was about how a kid is unable to write his exam and asks a classmate for help. The classmate asks why can he not write with his hands, and immediately the rest of the class begins dancing to Moye Moye.” As a person with a disability, Riddhi felt targeted by the insensitivity of the reel as well as the people performing it. “I was angry but to most people, such reels are merely ways to jump in on a trend and gain likes. They don’t dig deep enough to see who they may be hurting,” she said.
Soumya, a person with colour blindness found the reel on Instagram and at first, was curious to see where it originated from. “Mindless parodies have been common from the likes of ‘emo bois of India’, and the Moye Moye trend doesn’t surprise me. However, what’s appalling is the number of content creators and celebrities subscribing to this trend,” Soumya said. He raises the question of celebrity activism being a facade if one uses their platforms to ridicule disabled folks in the name of maintaining popularity. “Celebrities generally use their popularity to become the spokesperson for some issue or the other, and then they go ahead and hop on inappropriate trends.”
In one video, Dolly Singh is seen dancing around Uorfi Javed’s hands being stuck in an elaborate outfit, whereas in another, Diva Kapoor is seen tucking her arms in a coat while her friends dance around her.
Nipun Malhotra, social entrepreneur and disability rights activist says that the Moye Moye trend is completely grotesque and disgusting to watch. Malhotra talked about the movie Aankh Micholi, in which there are characters such as ‘Atki hui cassette’ for a person with a stutter or ‘Bhulakkar baap’, and how the movie shows that the only way for disabled people to get married is by hiding their realities.
“Even in Bollywood, stereotypes of disabilities are perpetuated and reinforced. So when leading actors and actresses play these stereotypes with international production houses, it, unfortunately, gives the crowd a free pass to laugh at the expense of disabled people,” argued Malhotra. These stereotypes further segregate people with disabilities.
Gayatri, a neurodivergent person talked about how disabilities may not always be visible to others. But there needs to be a collective action from society to be open to learning and accepting people with differing abilities. “My struggles with learning are not known to most people because they don’t encounter it daily. But their obliviousness to my difficulties often gives them the chance to make fun of other people with disabilities in front of me,” said Gayatri.
She first became aware of the “Moye Moye” trend when she caught her make-up artist’s daughter laughing at the reels. “There’s not much you can say to a child picking up on these problematic cultures when they’re that young. But it’s this inadvertent silence that allows ridiculous notions to fester,” she added.
So who does it fall upon to take on the role of mediating viral content?
Prakash, a teacher of Literature, argues that the platforms should take on more responsibility to vet content. “If I am running a social media business that empowers young children to older citizens with information, then I must intervene and see what kind of information they’re receiving,” Prakash continued.
Currently, platform policies require the audience to report problematic content first, which is then investigated and taken down if against community standards. “That puts the onus to report content on the people who are laughing at these reels and not viewing them as problematic in the first place,” added Prakash. As he concluded, the process is slow and tedious and often overlooked by most, letting trends like these grow. So however mammoth a task, the platforms should take on the role to at least check their most viral content.
Nipun Malhotra agrees that if such things get promoted more and more online, it might segregate persons with disabilities even further. So platforms and bots especially can play a role in curbing harmful content.
“Laughing at your disability is okay to an extent, but when others do it, it’s usually because they haven’t interacted with people with disabilities. People with disabilities can have a great sense of humour too but laughing at their disability itself is a line you cannot cross,” Malhotra explained.
At the time of writing this story, #moyemoye had seen over 600,000 interactions between 20 November-17 December 2023, with close to 17,000 views per day.