We talked with his brother Rohit Jakotiya and this is what he had to say “Rohan is quite active on all social platforms. Twitter, Facebook, Quora, Instagram, Snapchat, you name it; you’ll find him there. In fact, he is so much into social media socializing that he is one of the 15 users that still use Hike messenger. When the concept of memes erupted on social media, Rohan was one of the first users from Jaipur to use them, make them and tag people in them. Had I known that this was going to destroy my little brother, I would have blocked his social media activity by preventing my neighbor from recharging his wifi.” He further added “It all began when he tagged 194 of his friends in a ‘Dil Chahta Hai’ meme. I thought this was just because he was excited to go to Goa. But later I realised, Goa was not the issue here, tagging was. Every day, he used to tag at least 50 people in 50 different memes. Earlier, he used to tag only those people who were relevant to the meme. But at a later stage, he just used to tag ANYONE he found online. For example, he once tagged our maternal uncle in a ‘Chaar botal vodka’ meme. Then he tagged our neighbor in a ‘Tag a friend who is kanjoos (miser)’ meme. He tagged our neighbor while using his wifi. Our neighbor almost changed the wifi password. I had to barge in and save the day. I began to sense that this is turning out to be a problem.”
He added “Then it became uncontrollable. From tagging our dad in ‘Aise kaise b******d’ meme when dad told he won’t allow for nightout and tagging our watchman in ‘Tag a friend who looks Chinese’ meme to tagging his ex-girlfriend in ‘Aao kabhi haveli pe’ meme (yes, she broke up with him after that meme), Rohan had completely lost it. One day, I asked the neighbor to change the wifi password. I wanted to see Rohan’s reaction. And then happened what I had suspected. Rohan became restless. He couldn’t eat, he couldn’t drink, he couldn’t sleep; his hands started shaking, his voice trembling; it was like he was addicted to tagging people in memes. I had to cure my brother’s obsession so I contacted Jaipur Rehabiliation Centre and they took him away. I hope he recovers soon” said a hopeful Rohit.
While signing off, Rohit showed us the last meme used by Rohan to tag 375 people. It was the ‘Acha chalta hoon, duaaon me yaad rakhna’ meme.
