India gets criticised plenty – sometimes fairly, sometimes not. But every now and then, someone from outside the country steps in and says, “That’s not what I’ve seen.”That’s exactly what happened when American content creator Kristen Fischer called out an AI-generated video that she said was presenting an ugly and completely distorted picture of India.The video had gone viral, showing an Indian man supposedly rolling rotis on his large, bare stomach while sitting around garbage. At one point, he even appears to wipe sweat from his forehead before continuing.It sounds bizarre because it is.And according to Fischer, the clip wasn’t real.
‘Nobody is rolling out rotis on their big fat stomach’
Fischer shared a reaction video on Instagram after the fake clip reportedly racked up around 28 million views.Her frustration wasn’t really about people making fun of one strange video. She was more concerned about what happens when millions of people see something like this and assume it represents an entire country.“You want to know why the world thinks that India is the filthiest, dirtiest, grossest place?” she said in the video. “It’s because there’s stuff like this all over the Internet.”She then pointed out the obvious.“Nobody is out there rolling out rotis on their big fat stomach like this,” she said, before explaining that the video had been generated using AI.Her bigger concern was that someone had deliberately created a fake scene that could reinforce an already familiar stereotype about India.
She says the internet isn’t showing the full picture
Fischer went on to argue that viral content can easily become people’s only window into a country they’ve never visited.“India is not this gross and this dirty, but this is the news. This is the media that people are being fed about India,” she said.And that’s where her argument struck a chord with viewers.A person who has never been to India might see a strange or shocking clip online, watch it for a few seconds and move on. But if the same kind of content keeps appearing on their feed, it can start to feel like evidence of what the country is actually like.Fischer said that was exactly the problem.She ended her video with a much more positive message, saying that India is “actually a wonderful place to live with lots of great people” and stressing that the viral clip did not show what the country really looks like.
Indians thanked her for saying it
The response to Fischer’s post was largely appreciative, particularly from Indian viewers and people living abroad.One user wrote, “Thanks @kristenfischer3 for saying it loud to the rest of the World.”Another thanked her for showing people “what India is really about.”An Indian living in the US also shared a more personal reaction, saying the constant stream of negative videos about India can be painful to watch and that Fischer speaking about it carried extra weight because she was American.“Thanks a billion for doing this,” the commenter wrote. “My heart breaks when I see videos like this.”Others simply praised Fischer for calling out what they saw as a deliberate attempt to create a false image of the country.
The bigger problem with AI videos
The controversy also points to a problem that’s getting harder to ignore.AI-generated videos can look convincing enough to fool people who don’t stop to question what they’re watching. And when the subject is another country, culture or community, a fake clip can quickly turn into a stereotype.India certainly has real problems. There are genuine issues involving cleanliness, overcrowding, pollution and infrastructure, and those shouldn’t be brushed aside.But that’s very different from presenting a completely fabricated scene as if it’s everyday life.That’s the distinction Fischer was trying to make.Her message wasn’t that India is perfect. It was that one fake viral video shouldn’t be allowed to become a stand-in for more than a billion people and a country of enormous variety.And perhaps that’s why her reaction connected with so many Indians online. At a time when social media can make the most outrageous image travel the fastest, sometimes it takes someone to simply stop and say: That’s not real.
