India’s Education Minister, Dharmendra Pradhan, resigned in July after weeks of protests led by the Cockroach Janta Party, a satirical online movement founded in May.
On 17 October, a TikTok call from an unknown account helped put 550,000 people on French streets, according to the Interior Ministry, or 800,000 according to organisers. In Hong Kong in 2019, protesters called their approach “Be Water” and refused to have leaders.
Hong Kong Taught Protest to Move
The Anti-ELAB protests began on 7 June 2019, and protesters borrowed “Be Water” from Bruce Lee to describe a movement that refused to stay in one place. They voted and argued on the LIHKG forum, planned in dozens of Telegram groups, and used AirDrop to send information to nearby phones. With no leader to arrest, the movement was hard to stop, and Professor Francis Lee of the Chinese University of Hong Kong called it “open-source” protest.
A study by Kow, Nardi and Cheng raised two concerns: that forum members may not represent the wider public, and that the platforms carry privacy risks. A 2021 USENIX study based on interviews with 11 participants found people describing the movement as “flat but not leaderless”. A flat network is quick, but someone still has to speak for it, calm its clashes and carry it across weeks.
India’s Joke Found Organisers
Chief Justice Surya Kant compared unemployed young people and online critics to cockroaches during a hearing on 15 May, and he later said he meant people with fake degrees. The next day, Abhijeet Dipke, a communications specialist with a Boston University master’s degree, asked on X: “What if all the cockroaches come together?” He launched the Cockroach Janta Party as a satire, and it signed up 50,000 people in 24 hours and more than a million in five days, Boston University reported.
NPR reported that its Instagram following reached nearly 22 million, more than twice the ruling BJP’s. On 6 June, supporters in cockroach masks rallied at Jantar Mantar in Delhi over a leaked national exam paper, and Pradhan resigned in July. The government banned the group’s first X account, citing “threats to national security”, and the movement then demanded the resignation of Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar. A joke gave the movement an identity, but demands, protest sites and a target gave it force.
France Added Unions to TikTok
La Clé Publique reported that on 7 September a TikTok account called V2 proposed a 17 October protest against fuel prices, then stepped back. AI-generated posters appeared on newly created accounts, but France’s Viginum agency found no significant foreign operation behind them. Visibrain counted about 460,000 posts and 132 million TikTok views.
Organisers arrived next: student groups already protesting over school conditions adopted the date, and the CGT, Solidaires and Confédération paysanne joined, producing 110 marches. The day before, the Interior Ministry expected 40,000 to 60,000 people in Paris and about 100,000 elsewhere, but it counted 550,000, against 800,000 for organisers.
Crowds Test Leaderless Protest
Large parts of the 17 October marches were peaceful, but looting and fires broke out in several cities. About 1,200 people were arrested and 150 police were hurt, CNN reported, and the retail federation counted about 1,500 businesses hit, while the commerce minister said at least 3,000. Prime Minister Sébastien Lecornu asked prefects for partial curfews in Paris, Lyon, Lille and other areas.
The original call had no owner, since V2 had stepped back, so nothing in it gave anyone authority over what happened once the crowds arrived. That repeats the weakness the Hong Kong studies describe: a movement that online calls can start cannot be governed by online calls.
Organisers Arrive After the Spark
The three cases follow one sequence. A spark spreads online, organisers adopt it, and the organised part gets results: India’s exam-leak protests ended with a minister’s resignation, and French unions turned a TikTok date into 110 marches. The spark brought attention, but the structure brought logistics, demands and routes.
Gen Z movements are not abandoning institutions; they are rebuilding them after the spark. The smartphone starts the protest and the meme gives it language, but organisers decide what it asks for and how long it lasts. “Be Water” taught a generation how to move, and the next lesson is when to stop long enough to organise.
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