A recent Instagram video by influencer Amulya Rattan has set off a hilarious meme trend. In the clip originally meant as a simple outfit check Rattan pauses mid-recording when a stranger walks into her frame. Visibly annoyed, she comes closer to the camera and says, “Zero sense hai, zero… Where is civic sense?” saying that he didn’t even apologize. What seemed like a minor rant immediately snowballed into a full-blown meme trend. Overnight, “zero civic sense” became the catchphrase of the moment, finding its way into countless parody reels and jokes across Instagram.
Within hours, the internet did what it does best and created memes out of it. Creators flooded Instagram with parody videos riffing on “zero civic sense.” People deliberately walked into friends’ video frames, acted outboard tantrums, or interrupted each other dramatically, all ending with a mock shout of “zero civic sense!”. Even well-known content creators started to join in, influencer Orry, Triggered Insaan with his wife Ruchika Rathore and others posted their own spoofs, pushing the joke into viral territory.
Some creators jokingly film absurd situations, someone “dying” or being “kidnapped” while demanding bystanders keep quiet for the sake of the reel. While business owners have also hopped on the trend and are promoting their services and products the trend became a running gag poking fun at anyone acting like filming a video is more important than, well, reality.
As the “Zero Civic Sense” memes circulated, Amulya Rattan took to Instagram to clarify the situation. She explained that she had actually changed shooting locations several times to avoid bothering anyone, and that a crowd of onlookers had already made her uncomfortable. Rattan admitted her tone was too harsh “My choice of words could have been better,” she said and she apologized for any hurt feelings. At the same time she called out the vitriol in the comments, asking, “Do I deserve that?” as threats and abusive messages had flooded her inbox.
Her explanation divided netizens. Some viewers appreciated her apology as mature and honest saying “At least she owned up and apologized that takes courage.”, while others doubled down on influencers being self-centered. One social media user wrote, “Public space means everyone has equal rights, content creators can’t expect special treatment”. Meanwhile, others saw it as a teachable moment, pointing out that even ordinary people shout “zero civic sense” at annoying behavior so why shouldn’t influencers? In fact, many comments turned Rattan’s own phrase against her, joking that she was showing “zero civic sense” by expecting strangers to yield the street for her video.
Behind all the laughter lies a very Gen Z phenomenon. Rather than letting it go, social media users chose to make it a comedy trend. What makes this moment peak Gen Z is how quickly frustration turned into humour. The phrase “zero civic sense” became a kind of inside joke or shorthand for everyday annoyances whether it’s a friend who hogs the sidewalk, a random litterbug on the street, or that one person who won’t move aside at the escalator, memes let people bond over common peeves and laugh off momentary irritations.
The term has been everywhere, it is now one of the most overused expressions on social media, applied to everything from queue-jumping to casual littering. It’s catchy, it’s relatable, and it taps into a larger debate about content creators in public spaces. This meme trend gave everyone a funny way to say “hey, some people can be really oblivious sometimes,” without starting a real argument.
