0

YouTube videos in corpus

0

Videos manually coded

0

Promoter videos

5–7

Explicit debunker videos

3.1M

Avg views per debunker video

680K

Avg views per promoter video

Methodology

The primary data source is YouTube. A video had to have at least 100 views to be included in the dataset — ensuring relevance and real audience reach.

All transcripts were translated to English using LLMs. Each translation was manually reviewed for accuracy — though some discrepancies may remain. Videos were then classified by stance (promoter, debunker, neutral), content style, narrative style, and speaker demographics.

A specific focus was placed on coding the historical imagination of each video: which time periods are invoked, which are absent, and how antiquity is used as a substitute for evidence.

Ethical Framing

All inferences and statements in this research are unbiased and based on observable patterns in the data — not on personal opinions. This subject is culturally and religiously sensitive, and that sensitivity has been central to how this research was conducted.

The goal is not to adjudicate whether Gomutra works or doesn’t — the goal is to understand what historical and rhetorical frameworks are being deployed, and what that tells us about how Indians relate to their own past.

What the data shows

Preliminary Findings

Influencer content that invokes history and tradition is more likely to find an accepting audience. History is a powerful tool — and in this corpus, it is deployed with striking selectivity.