Trolling from a pair of university students has gone viral — reaching over 2.5 million views on Instagram for mocking anti-immigration protesters at Sunday rallies over the past month.

The 20-year-old duo, Addison Yeh and Sandro Campana, first made their mark at the August 31 "March for Australia", with an Australian flag cape and "Asian invasion" sign.

The trolling wasn’t without backlash, as Yeh said he was attacked by a protester in their attempt to “be famous”.

“Someone stared us down … I joked, ‘I’m on your side.’ He grabbed my hat and pulled, but I had the strap on,” Yeh said.

The Instagram reel, filmed outside Flinders Street Station, was captioned “POV your parents told you not to go out on August 31st.”

Some viewers recognised the joke.

Others left hateful comments or confused the parody as genuine. As user @uyquy posted on Instagram: "Asian, you’re an immigrant on a country built by immigrants complaining about immigrants.”

Monash University lecturer in politics Dr Blair Williams said even satirical content can give airtime to harmful ideas. But she said “ridicule can be quite a powerful thing”.

“The way the world has gone, what may once have obviously been satire is now questioned,” she said.

Yeh posted a longer video on YouTube on September 16, inspired by YouTuber Niko Omilana, who had pranked members of the English Defence League.

In the video, Yeh made up statistics, including a fake petition with “13 million signatures to change the national animal to a panda”.

Yeh said he felt scared to approach “neo-Nazis”, avoided masked protesters, and instead interviewed less aggressive-looking protesters, leaving before tensions rose and police used pepper spray, as Guardian Australia reported.

The City of Melbourne council proposed a framework ensuring “a safe environment” at protests as part of its 2025–2029 plan, in response to increased fears over racism from multicultural communities.

For Yeh, that fear was part of the reason to push back through satire. “Our parents would agree not to go out on that day [August 31],” he said.

“My mum told me to never do it again.”