JCB Ki Khudai

Submission 12,035

Part of a series on India. [View Related Entries]

About

JCB Ki Khudai refers to a series of jokes and memes about a brand of industrial excavators found in India. Many of these jokes refer to people's desire to see these machines in action, despite other, conflicting responsibilities.

Origin

While the original cause for the memes is unknown, many have cited several YouTube videos, which have received millions of views, as the cause. For example, a July 19th, 2017 video by
THIND JCB ZIRA received more than 6 million views and an October 31st, 2017 video by Jcb stunt Master Indian Driver received more than 4 million views (shown below, left and right, respectively). Many of the subsequent memes mocked these videos for having such high view counts.

[This video has been removed]

Others have cited a posted by Bollywood actress Sunny Leone. On May 25th, 2019, she posted a photograph of herself atop an excavator on Twitter ^[1] and Instagram. ^[2] She captioned the photo, "Career change!? LOL 😜." On Twitter, the post received more than 1,300 retweets and 26,000 likes in three days, and on Instagram, the post received more than 786,000 likes (shown below).

Spread

The following day, Indian meme groups began sharing various image macros about the popularity of the machines. On May 26th, 2019, Facebook ^[3] account ConfusedAatmaOfficial posted a parody of the Inauguration of Donald Trump. The post received more than 6,400 reactions, 280 comments and 785 shares (shown below, left).

The following day, Twitter^[4] user @TrulyMonica tweeted, "JCB khudayi jokes are so subtle yet so funny. Apparently, the jokes are about how jobless are people to watch JCB digging videos on YouTube with these videos getting millions of views." The tweet received more than 175 retweets and 860 likes in 24 hours (shown below, right).

Over the next few days, people began theorizing what started the trend. On May 27th, the website Cis Theta Global claimed that the trend took off after a member of Parliament in Hyderabad, India commented, "India me berozgaari itni hai ki log JCB ka kahi kaam chal raha hota hai to vo dekhne bheed ikhatti kar lete hai" (translation: India has got a lot of work to do JCB's work but I do not know how to do it."). However, this claim could not be verified.^[5]

Facebook^[6] group Logic Humor writes, "Okay People who don't know from where JCB Trend get in to play: Someone posted a pic in some group of JCB saying "Bhailog JCB se khudai ho rhi log door door se paryatak aaye hai" bs fir or logo ne dali and this trend goes on and LH posted a meme out of it luckily it got a great reach and rest you all know." The post received more than 1,800 reactions (shown below).

That day, Twitter^[7] published a Moments page about the memes under the title "Many poke fun at people watching videos of diggers at work."

On May 27th, JCB responded to the memes on Twitter. They wrote, "We are truly humbled by the love shown for JCB in India today, with #JCBKiKhudai trending across the country! Thank you to our customers and fans for your enthusiasm and support!" The post received more than 1,000 retweets and 3,200 likes in 24 hours (shown below).

We are truly humbled by the love shown for JCB in India today, with #JCBKiKhudai trending across the country! Thank you to our customers and fans for your enthusiasm and support! With @JCBIndiaLtd, you can #ExpectMore. #JCBkikhudayi pic.twitter.com/4oGhCAqcyJ

— JCB (@JCBmachines) May 27, 2019