Durgesh and Sanjay

Confirmed 51,463

About

Durgesh refers to a set of viral Instagram posts in which a man identified as Sanjay Kapoor claims to be repeatedly catfished by an older man named Durgesh. After screenshots began widely circulating in late October 2017, a man came forward on Facebook claiming they the photographs were actually of a son and his disabled father.

Origin

On October 26th, 2017, Instagram user @sanjayyy_kapoor^[1] posted a series of photographs captioned with claims that he had been catfished by an older man named Durgesh several times, leading him to assault the man (shown below).

Spread

That day, Twitter user @Tazznemo^[5] posted screenshots of the posts along with the message "My favourite Instagram account." Within four days, the tweet gathered more than 258,800 likes and 105,500 retweets. Meanwhile, Imgur^[10] user fatherofpenguinmafia reposted the screenshots, which accumulated upwards of 213800 views and 5,800 points over the next 72 hours. On October 27th, Twitter user @WidefaceViki^[6] posted a Who's That Pokemon photoshop featuring Sanjay and Durgesh (shown below).

That day, Redditor mrdoddsi submitted the Instagram screenshots to /r/indianpeoplefacebook,^[11] where they received upwards of 4,200 points (95% upvoted) and 140 comments over the next three days. On October 28th, 2017, Facebook user Sudhanshu Pandey published a post claiming that the photos were of his brother Durgesh with his 51-year-old disabled father Sanjay.

The following day, the original Instagram screenshots were posted in a thread on 4chan's /int/ board.^[4] Meanwhile, /r/IndianPeopleFacebook^[7] moderator atticus94 submitted a post ordering users to "stop using the Durgesh meme" in light of Sudhanshu Pandey's Facebook post. Also on October 29th, Redditor noggerfaggit posted a photoshopped series of Scooby Doo screencaptures featuring Durgesh and Sanjay to /r/dankmemes^[8] (shown below). On October 30th, 2017, the internet news site Storypick^[9] published an article titled "Viral ‘Durgesh’ Meme Is Actually A 16 YO Boy And His Disabled Father."