TODJ, which stands as the abbreviation for “Tribe Of Dardanaak Jokes” has grown from being a mere Facebook group to a hub of original and quality humor on the internet these days and we’re here to take a look at what makes it special!
It all started in 2010 when two students names Karanveer Mohan and Tushant Jha started a Facebook group by the name of “Tribe of Dardanaak Jokes” and they were later joined by Anunay Kulshreshtha and Namanyay Goyal and the further expansion led to more Facebook admins coming up when the tribe grew in popularity.
As a member of the group myself, I have had the opportunity to see some of the current admins such Mohit Ghune, Harsh Nambiar, Jay Chheda, Virendra Vaishnav and Gourav Zutshi post some of the wittiest and funniest jokes you’ll ever see.
It is due to the collective efforts of the super admins (the original 4 who started TODJ) and the current admins that the group, or let’s go with the word “Tribe” grew massively in terms of popularity and currently stands at almost 43,000 members in total with almost 10,000 active members on a regular basis.
The reason I’m writing this article to bring TODJ into the limelight because not a lot of people pay such attention to detail when it comes to posting quality humor and in a general scenario, almost anything passes of as humor these days (you can check out my rant against The Kapil Sharma Show if you click here) and there is no saturation or differentiation.
What makes this group different is that not only the admins post good jokes but it’s the other added members who regularly post too BUT the jokes posted by the ENTIRE tribe are always put to certain litmus tests which are made by the group admins and mentioned quite descriptively in a pinned post on Facebook as a “rule book” which needs to be followed.
Basic rules such as no copying of jokes, no promotion of your Facebook page, etc. are rather simple but some of the different rules made by the tribe include guidelines about “Doxxing”, which is posting content about someone that can be used to recognize someone whether or not if that person is a part of TODJ or the “#meta” post rule, where a hashtag with the word “meta” next to it can be used to make a post which is either a genuine query or a problem.
Now, the only rule which ensures quality humor in an unbiased manner in this group is RULE 0 which states :
“Posts which aren’t meta and don’t qualify as a joke will be deleted. This includes posts that are really shitty (Text post getting ≤ 20 likes and Pic Post getting ≤ 30 likes or appreciation and restricted template jokes ≤ 100 in 1 hour ) followed by a ban for repeatedly violating the quality, better delete by yourself. Or if you are genuinely sure it is good quality, you might want to reveal the crack (of the joke) and request an exemption.”
It’s as constitutional as it gets and you shall follow the rules without any exception.
Now, this group doesn’t come with its fair share of controversy. People posting dark humor are generally asked to refrain because of Facebook’s content policies and are banned if they continue to violate the norms. A special group called “Dark TODJ” was formed which featured only such content and was shortly removed by Facebook itself.
The next controversy is arguably the biggest pain in the ass : Cyber plagiarism. I know, I know. It’s nothing new. Happens everyday. You don’t get credits and all that hoopla. Also, shout-out to pages like “Rajnikanth vs CID Jokes” who shamelessly copy content from TODJ and post it as their own (AND YES, THAT IS AN ACTUAL PAGE ON FACEBOOK).
There are generally actions taken by the admins themselves to counter this problem by either conversation with the other page’s admins or if necessary, reporting the copied content but to a large extent, it still is unfair to the one who uses a part of his intelligence to come up with a brilliant pun or a wordplay and then watches his content being posted as his own.
Nevertheless, this group has now expanded to a Facebook page of the same name and currently stands at a strong following of 38,000 people who read the best posts from the group on the page.
Social media has allowed us to finally enjoy humor in the truest form and this movement is being driven by TODJ at the helm of it. Be thankful to them. Haha.
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