When Harry Jackson pulled his small motorcycle into Kathmandu on September 8, he had no idea the city was exploding in protests. He didn’t even know there was a curfew. People in Nepal, largely driven by Gen Z youth, had taken to the streets, and that day riots broke out when nearly two dozen people were shot and killed by authorities. In the middle of it all was Jackson, a travel vlogger riding from Thailand to the United Kingdom on his bike.
Within a day, the mass demonstrations that filled the capital would do the seemingly impossible: defy trigger-happy law enforcement, storm the grounds of parliament and set fire to the building, and oust a prime minister. Jackson, who had been documenting his journey for months on YouTube, Instagram, and other social media under the @wehatethecold channel, became one of the main ways people around the world saw what was happening in Nepal as youth-led protests toppled the government.
Anger had been simmering in Nepal for months, much of it driven by widespread corruption among politicians. Many of those politicians’ children also flaunted their wealth, often on social media. They in turn were called out online by Nepali people, and on September 4, the government banned 26 social media platforms. Protests started, and large demonstrations broke out on September 8, with police using tear gas, rubber bullets, and live ammunition on crowds of largely young demonstrators. That’s when Jackson arrived, filming his way through marches and capturing the sounds of gunshots.
Video still courtesy of @wehatethecold
Jackson had been in Nepal earlier in June but returned due to other geopolitical issues. He had planned to be in Kathmandu for a short, easy stop to get his Honda CT125 shipped for the next leg of his journey. He had been in India, trying to cross into Pakistan. But the border was closed, so he headed north to Nepal. After getting a hotel and catching up on events, he decided to tag along with some people and see the protests the next day. He’d been told it wasn’t safe for tourists but said he was willing to roll the dice, especially after having ridden his bike through some unsafe roads for weeks. On September 9 he was out among the protests for several hours, and by midafternoon decided to get back to his hotel to quickly edit the footage and get it published.
“This footage just has to go online. I was watching it back and reliving the time and thinking, wow, this is insane,” he tells WIRED. “They’re burning parliament, this is huge!”
Jackson was with crowds as they moved through narrow streets, eventually descending on the large area around the parliament building. The footage Jackson captured that day shows a mix of chaos—including hundreds fleeing gunshots—and mutual aid, with people stopping to hand out water, check in on each other, and help those hurt by tear gas. In the video, Jackson, 28, moves through the protesters, asking what the latest is, following the crowds as they get closer to the seat of power. His video took off, racking up millions of views in just hours, and it has more than 30 million views on YouTube alone.
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