Married against family's wishes. Are these couples seeking help or followers?

“Humne apni marzi se shaadi kari hai. Agar inki family ko kuch hota hai, toh mere gharwale zimmedaar honge...” (We married by choice. If anything happens to his family, my family will be responsible.)"For the past couple of weeks, alongside the usual fitness, GRWM and Diwali party videos, a rather unusual kind of Reel has been popping up repeatedly on my feed. These videos have one thing in common: young couples announcing that they have eloped and making a public appeal for protection. The appeal usually includes a request to keep them and their partner's family safe.What makes these videos stand out is that they are not exactly everyday social media content. And they raise a couple of questions. First, are these genuinely runaway couples seeking protection through social media, or is this another social media trend being used to garner views and followers?Another striking aspect is how frequently these videos are appearing. I have come across around 10 such Reels, with different couples making almost identical appeals. A closer look at their profiles revealed that many were also posting everyday vlogs or seemingly unrelated videos about their lives. Looking through more videos and scanning the profiles that shared them, a template began to emerge. Different couples, almost the same script.Pyaar, shaadi and a public declaration: A common templateFirst, two people present themselves as a couple who have married against their families’ wishes. In most of these videos, the woman takes centre stage, stating that she has consented to the marriage, faced no coercion and is not under duress. She then says that if anything happens to her husband or his kins her family should be held responsible. In some videos, women name specific family members too. These 'template-ish videos' have millions of views. Clearly, the storyline had made people curious about these unusual marriage announcements: part declaration of love, part appeal to be left alone. The intrigue is real, because if an appeal is genuine, the person recording it may be frightened, seeking visibility or trying to put their account on record for a reason.But, again, that raises a few questions: why take this announcement online? Was the aim to seek protection, find an audience, or both?Well, only the people in the videos can explain their intentions. We cannot establish those simply by watching.For most of these couples, the announcement wasn’t always the last update. On some profiles, it was followed by daily vlogs about the couple’s life together that are weirdly addictive. Others were...just there.Oh wait, that’s not it.It’s also a meme now.Apparently, there are quite a few such videos claiming to be from places like Samastipur (Bihar), Purnia (Bihar) and elsewhere. Now, people have made compilations of these videos and made it a running joke.One more video, one more questionOf course, when you watch one, the feed eventually begins to feel like a succession of cliffhangers. Each video introduces another couple and another unresolved family story. That is the peculiar pull of this rabbit hole: the uncertainty can become part of the attraction. You simply keep watching.A crucial clarification: We have not independently verified the marriages, elopements or allegations in these videos. We cannot establish whether they document real situations, are scripted performances or have been made to attract attention. - Ends