The Revolution is Giving

Discord, a chat app built for gamers, was transformed into an unlikely parliament in Nepal

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ON a September night in Kathmandu, the Parliament of Nepal was not convened under the gleaming chandeliers of Singha Durbar, a more-than-a-century-old historic palace complex and the nerve centre of the country's administration. Instead, the 'Parliament' itself flickered alive on laptop screens and smartphones across the country. The benches were not lined with politicians in perfectly ironed daura suruwals (a formal, traditional Nepalese outfit) but with thousands of anonymous avatars: anime faces, football club crests, cartoon frogs and even K-pop idols.

In the Discord server run by Hami Nepal, a youth-led NGO, channels scrolled so fast they were almost unreadable. One room buzzed with strategy for the next morning’s protests; another debated the fine points of electoral reform. In a voice channel labelled #parliament-floor, young protesters argued over who could command public trust as an interim leader. Within minutes, thousands of votes poured in. By midnight, the consensus was clear. The following week, on September 12, Sushila Karki—a 73-year-old former chief justice respected for her independence—was appointed interim prime minister, a choice first legitimised through these animated Discord discussions.

“The Parliament of Nepal right now is Discord,” said Sid Ghimiri, 23, a Kathmandu-based content creator for The New York Times, summing up a generational mood: disillusioned with institutions but determined to build their own. The protests, which began over government curbs on social media platforms, had grown into a wider pushback against Prime Minister K.P. Sharma Oli’s administration, creating a vacuum in which citizens debated alternative leadership on Discord.