The Inside Story of How Gen Z Toppled Nepal’s Leader and Chose a New One on Discord

At 11:30 pm on Tuesday, September 9, Rakshya Bam stepped down from an army jeep outside military headquarters in a pitch-dark, locked-down Kathmandu. The 26-year-old hadn’t slept in more than a day. Her eyes were red-rimmed and glassy, the whites threaded with thin lines of fatigue.

A wave of youth-led protests had rocked Nepal, born on Discord servers, TikTok feeds, and encrypted messaging apps. In just a few days, Bam had seen friends gunned down, watched parliament buildings smolder, and witnessed the collapse of the Nepalese government. Prime minister K. P. Sharma Oli had resigned, and the army had stepped in to try to restore order. Now, Bam was one of 10 young activists who had been summoned to an unprecedented meeting.

As she walked through the gates of Nepali Army headquarters, flanked by soldiers in full combat gear, Bam could feel her phone buzzing in her pocket. Online, misinformation was spreading fast. Bam’s phone barely stopped buzzing. “The king is here.” “The army has staged a coup.” Discord was alive with chatter. Diplomats were calling, urging, “Save democracy!”

Rakshya Bam grew up in Kailali, a lowland district in Nepal’s far west, where the subtropical plains stretch toward the Indian border. The region is known for its dense sal forests and fertile fields, but after years of neglect it’s one of the country’s poorest areas.

Nepal is one of the youngest countries in South Asia, with a median age of 25.3 years (the US median age is 39.1). High fertility rates in previous decades have created a “youth bulge”—the largest in the region’s history. But many young people like Bam see no future in their homeland. The country has effectively outsourced its labor market to Malaysia, South Korea, and the Gulf states, exporting its youth instead of creating opportunities at home. Minimum wages are not enough to sustain a life within Nepal’s borders, leaving young Nepalis with a stark choice: Leave to study abroad, or leave to work abroad.

Those who stay are forced to contend with a political system that doesn’t work for them. Even with steep taxes, essential services are in disarray. In the 1950s, the first democratic movement brought free elections, before the monarchy reasserted control. In the 1990s, citizens rose again and reclaimed democracy, but poor governance, civil war, and the 2005 royal coup, when King Gyanendra dismissed parliament, arrested political leaders, and imposed a media blackout, snuffed out that hope. Even after the fall of the monarchy and the end of the war, the structural problems that had driven Nepal’s unrest persisted. The Maoists, who had launched a decade-long “People’s War” in 1996 demanding the creation of a republic that would address deep inequalities, especially in rural Nepal, were subsumed into mainstream politics. Their movement, once rooted in the frustrations of marginalized groups like Dalits, Indigenous communities, and poor farmers shut out of Kathmandu’s elite, helped establish Nepal as a federal democratic republic. But over time, the Maoists became part of the same establishment they had once fought to dismantle. Power continued to circulate among a familiar set of parties and leaders.

For Bam and her peers, the online world offered a place to express outrage, build solidarity, and speak freely. She started posting about corruption and inequality on social media, sharing photos of herself at small rallies, holding a megaphone or a hand-drawn pamphlet. Then, in early September 2025, a new trend started to sweep across Nepali social media.

Nimesh Shrestha’s TikTok feed was supposed to make him laugh. He grew up in Kathmandu and had developed a niche as a video editor and content creator, known for slapstick comedy and quirky skits. Usually, the algorithm fed him similar content. But in early September, he started to notice different kinds of videos filling his phone.

They showed luxury cars glinting in the sun and the children of Nepali government ministers stepping out of them wearing designer clothes and expensive watches. There were reels showcasing opulent weddings, intercut with images of Nepal’s impoverished communities. The “Nepo Kid” trend had started in the Philippines and Indonesia, but now it was erupting in Nepal too. As it spread, the tone of the videos seemed to shift. They became more raw, chaotic, and emotionally charged, turning corruption and inequality into something tangible, instantly recognizable, and shareable.

As the videos began to rack up millions of views and spill into mainstream news coverage, the government responded with panic. On September 4, the Ministry of Communications and Information Technology ordered internet service providers to block access to 26 social-media platforms, including Facebook, Instagram, X, and YouTube, ostensibly because the companies had failed to register with the government as required by a Supreme Court directive. Users opened their apps to find frozen feeds, posts failing to load, and connection errors flashing across their screens.

Coming just as the Nepo Kid videos were flooding social feeds, the government’s explanation felt hollow. To Nepal’s young citizens, the ban wasn’t about compliance or procedure—it was about fear. The system, they believed, was terrified of transparency.

VPN downloads surged. Within hours, Nepalis were trading links and workarounds in private chats and Discord servers, tunneling back online through encrypted connections. The government crackdown only amplified the sense of defiance.

On September 6, outrage turned to fury. An 11-year-old girl, Usha Magar Sunuwar, was struck by a black SUV carrying a provincial minister from the ruling party. The vehicle sped away without stopping, but the incident was captured on CCTV. The clip went viral within hours.

Later that day, Shrestha and Bam were added to a Discord server called Youths Against Corruption, which had just been set up by Hami Nepal, a nonprofit founded by activist Sudan Gurung in 2015, after he lost his son in a deadly earthquake that flattened neighborhoods across central Nepal and killed nearly 9,000 people. Hami Nepal had only about 20 active volunteers but had built up a large online following through its disaster-relief work after the earthquake and during the Covid pandemic. When the government blocked social media platforms, the same networks that once coordinated oxygen deliveries and flood relief pivoted to activism.

Discord was one of the banned platforms but needed less bandwidth than mainstream social media, which made it easier to access through VPNs. Youths Against Corruption quickly became the largest of several servers that emerged in the chaos that followed the internet shutdown, with more than 150,000 members.

Late on September 6, according to Shrestha, after hours of frantic coordination on Discord, the group began preparing for their move to the streets. On Shrestha’s TikTok and Instagram, he’d post stories every few minutes with safety tips, including what to do if tear gas was deployed, emergency contact numbers, and which routes to avoid. His follower count tripled. Thousands messaged him, asking how to take part. Protest guides were readily shared online, telling viewers how to remain safe and peaceful. The Discord servers enabled participants to coordinate flash protests, promote hashtags such as #OliResign, #GenZProtest, and #WakeUpNepal, and warn each other about police movements.

On September 8, Bam was standing in the back of a pickup truck, microphone in hand, helping to coordinate as dozens of youth groups converged for a protest in central Kathmandu. She called out to the growing crowd, reading from a list: “We won’t break trees or vandalize property. We won’t shout, set fires, or create chaos. No violence, no conflict. We won’t threaten or use foul language. We will stay peaceful. We will be civil and responsible. We haven’t come carrying any political party’s agenda.” The crowd cheered, and she waved the Nepali flag, hoping her voice would be enough to keep things calm. But the crowd was swelling faster than anyone had anticipated. Groups she didn’t recognize began pushing toward restricted government zones, ignoring the curfew, ignoring her pleas. Barricades near the parliament began to topple. Vehicles were set on fire. Stones flew through the air. She saw tear gas canisters arcing through the afternoon sky like birds. The gunfire started moments later.

Panicked police commanders, fearing a breach of the parliament compound, had opened fire on the crowd. Bam saw young people collapse, shot in the head. The protests would ultimately leave at least 72 people dead and over 1,000 injured nationwide, making it the deadliest unrest in Nepal’s recent history. The next day, despite the massacre and a strict curfew, thousands of young protesters returned to the streets, still trying to demonstrate peacefully. But alongside them, mobs emerged. Bam watched as groups vandalized government buildings, set private properties ablaze, and attacked homes. Smoke rose over Kathmandu. As protests spiraled and government buildings smoldered, Prime Minister K. P. Sharma Oli resigned. Within hours, the army was on the streets, enforcing a 6 pm to 6 am curfew and promising to restore stability.

Social media let the world watch the government crackdown in real time. Nepal’s internet was filled with cell phone footage of police opening fire on young people, bodies collapsing in clouds of tear gas. A British travel YouTuber went viral after getting caught in the maelstrom. Shrestha describes the experience of following the protests online as “organized chaos.” “It was wild. Hundreds of people talking at once, memes flying around, live updates from the streets. You felt the chaos of the city through the screen,” he says.

One voice cut through the noise. Known as “Jalebi” on Discord, he requested anonymity, but his username and voice were among the most recognizable on the Youths Against Corruption server. With experience running Discord channels and a background in tech, he had volunteered to moderate the server when it was first created.

Now, as violence erupted on the streets, Jalebi found himself cast in the role of emergency responder. He clicked on a username, opened a direct message. “What’s your phone number?” A voice confirmed the address and described the injuries. Jalebi posted the information in the rescue channel, and nearby users responded. He got them on a call, coordinating the pickup. That night, he and a team of volunteers drove out to evacuate a family from a burning house. The request had come through Discord, and Jalebi had verified it by phone before they went.

What had started as a platform to facilitate protests and communication quickly evolved. Moderators now verified calls for help, coordinated rescues, and organized blood donations for people trapped by the curfew. As the server swelled beyond 100,000 members, Jalebi scrambled to recruit 15 to 20 more volunteer moderators to keep up with the demand.

The server had been open; anyone could invite anyone. International YouTube channels discovered the feed and began livestreaming it. Foreigners flooded in. Some were curious observers; others spread propaganda, incited violence, or sent fake emergency calls designed to waste moderators’ time or expose their networks. One cybersecurity firm estimates that a third of the social media accounts driving the protests were fake.

Jalebi soon locked down invitations. He and his team created separate groups: verified rescue requests in one, general discussion in another, and coordination in a third. His role became triage, deciding whose turn it was to speak in voice channels, which messages to pin, and which users to silence or ban. Hate messages accumulated in his inbox.

By the next day, the violence had reversed its direction. Cell phone videos showed smoke rising over the capital, government buildings in flames, and mobs storming police stations. Guns, batons, and uniforms lay scattered on the ground as the city burned.

A few hours after their meeting with the army general on September 9, Bam, Shrestha, and a small group of protesters huddled in their safe space—a small room somewhere in Kathmandu that had become their usual meeting place during the uprising. It was the middle of the night, and their faces were lit by the glow of phones and laptops. Thousands logged in to Discord that night, as the protesters tried to wrestle with the task ahead of them.

It was a new kind of democracy—brokered not by men in suits but by anonymous users with names like meme_lord, rebel_rana, momo4justice, TheLostGhost, nepali_anon18, and 2pac, and avatars of cats in sunglasses and anime faces. There were streams of text in English and Nepali, punctuated by voice notes: someone shouting updates from Maitighar, a central square in Kathmandu near key government offices. Another played a protest song through their mic. A third laughed nervously. At times, the messages scrolled by too fast to read.

But this chaotic form of direct democracy was far from perfect. One participant, who requested anonymity, experienced this firsthand. In the frenzy of polls and speculation, they became the target of coordinated attacks after unverified claims about them began circulating on Reddit and Discord. The harassment was relentless enough to drive them offline entirely. “One moment you’re part of a movement, and another you’re receiving death threats through the same channels,” they said. “Someone can post a half-made-up story about your family’s connections to corruption, and you’re done. No verification, no due process. Just mob justice.”

As night turned to morning, the activists deliberated on who could lead, how to build consensus, and how to fill the power vacuum as soon as possible. They weighed risks and figured out a way to formalize their recommendations. By the time the sun rose over Kathmandu’s skyline, they had settled on a handful of candidates. But they needed one name to take to the army general.

“It was about showing a consensus,” Jalebi explains. “The poll was our evidence, the only way to measure what Gen Z was thinking. We ran it on Discord but also reached out to civil society members and other stakeholders to make sure it reflected more than just online chatter.”

After hours of voting across different polls, former chief justice Sushila Karki, who had a long history of activism on women’s rights, anti-corruption, social justice, and other matters of interest to younger generations, and who had become one of the movement’s most recognizable figures after footage of her joining protesters went viral, finally emerged as the lead candidate.

Three days later, Rakshya Bam was standing beneath the marble arches of the presidential residence as Parliament was dissolved and Karki prepared to take the oath as Nepal’s first female prime minister. As interim PM, Karki would lead a transitional government tasked with tackling corruption, ensuring transparency, and steering the country toward fresh elections. Watching her, Bam was struck by the sense that she and her peers had cracked history open.

Some of these events may seem familiar. Analysts have drawn parallels between Nepal’s Gen Z uprising and the 2011 Arab Spring, where social media became a force for mass mobilization, calling this moment a kind of “South Asian Spring.” In recent months, similar youth-led protests have erupted in Madagascar and Morocco.

But choosing a leader through a digital platform like Discord is messy, transparent, and unprecedented, says Sudhamsu Dahal, a researcher on the social impact of communication technologies. The current movement is spontaneous, leaderless, and emotionally charged—united more by a rejection of corruption and repression than by a shared vision of what comes next.

That means the same digital infrastructure that allowed young activists to mobilize could just as easily be weaponized against them. As the Youths Against Corruption server swelled to more than 150,000 users in the days after the protests, paranoia seeped in. Organizers warned about infiltrators, government agents, provocateurs, or trolls lurking behind anonymous accounts. Facebook users discovered that a page now calling itself Gen-Z Youth Nepal, one of the amplifiers of protest content, had previously been affiliated with a major political party before quietly rebranding just days before the uprising. Screenshots of the group’s history ricocheted across chats and servers, a digital flare warning of political infiltration.

Dahal says what Nepal witnessed was “the death of the old political class and the birth of a new one.” Whether this emerging generation can withstand entrenched forces remains uncertain. “The challenge now is turning digital momentum into lasting governance without sacrificing the moral clarity that gave the movement its power,” he says. He also warns that moving forward, digital surveillance will touch everyone, citizens and politicians alike, making every online action both a tool and a potential risk.

These movements have been hailed as a demonstration of social media’s ability to orchestrate decentralized, digitally coordinated activism, yet their reach remains uneven. Less than half of Nepalis had internet access in early 2023, and only 17 percent in rural areas. In many remote regions, the infrastructure and digital skills needed to participate are lacking. This gap suggests that the uprising, while gaining momentum online, may struggle to include those most marginalized, raising questions about how representative and sustainable the movement can ultimately be.

For now, the Discord servers remain active—political news, blood donation calls, and suggestions for former politicians who should be arrested still pop up regularly. Nepal is in a state of messy, unpredictable flux. The interim government has formed a cabinet to keep the country running, while protesters scramble to forge a coalition. On November 1, Bam was named coordinator of the Nepal Gen-Z Front, a new organization that will bring together the youth groups associated with the protests and try to unify their demands before the elections scheduled for March 2026. The media headlines have focused on the spectacle of September 9, while September 8, when police fired on young protesters, has received little attention.

“Maybe we didn’t change everything,” says Rakshya Bam. “But we changed how people imagine what’s possible.” Then she returns to that same question every Gen Z activist I spoke to is asking, one that can’t be answered with a Discord poll. What comes next?

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