The Game Of Hate is a self-shot video written and performed by Milind Mehta. In the five-minute-long video, Mehta represents certain people who are bereft of any conscience and who are always on the lookout for opportunities to manipulate people to their own ends, even people in a helpless situation.
According to Mehta, “The Game Of Hate comes from a space of reflection to the society that consumes social media and reacts on an impulse without giving it a thought that we are mere puppets in a larger political motive.”
The Game Of Hate begins with Mehta looking at video footage of dying COVID-19 patients, which has loud music and an intriguing thumbnail to get more views. The screen flashes before him in a dark room and he entertains himself with the idea of how much money the producer must have made with the video.
Going into a monologue, Mehta narrates how unemployment during the lockdown has made him follow a similar path. Now his sole job is to derive pleasure by involving social-media users in a game of hate with propaganda. He says he uses multiple profiles to spread contradictory information on politics, religion and other contemporary issues and gets vile enjoyment when people lose their sanity to something that is far from reality. He has already made some money with such fake posts and is now aiming for a proper business model.
Mehta, who has previously worked in Dil Bechara (2020) and several commercials, loves to express himself through various media. “I made The Game Of Hate because I had this angst in me," he explained. "Whenever I scrolled past on social media, I used to see trolls, hate comments and friends fighting each other. I used to think who could be behind all this havoc. While the idea was always written, I shot it spontaneously.”
He also deliberately used a tight aspect ratio to give the character less breathing space and highlight the pandemic-induced lockdown scenario.
The vile smile coupled with the careless and unaffected attitude of the character make him appear even more dangerous. “The character is someone who keeps himself entertained with cheap thrills and generates random sources of income by distracting social-media users from reality,” Mehta said. “He could be anyone from an unemployed youth to a person in power making moves on social media by circulating fake news, fabricating reality, and fighting his own truth to the point that users don’t know what’s real any more.”
Sounds familiar? The Game Of Hate is now available on YouTube. Check it out.