Someone once said – “Data is the new oil”. Whoever said it made an understatement. No one carried petrol/diesel to their toilets every morning, but people find hard to leave aside their data munching smartphones even when visiting those places. Most of us, excluding the ones who are on the path of greatness, switch on the data of our phones first thing in the morning and scroll through social media. On an average, a person spends about four hours on their phone daily.
While the time we spend on phones/social media has increased, our
attention span seems to have come down drastically. How would you otherwise
explain that reels and tik toks are more popular than blogs and stand-up
comedy. People aren’t too busy to watch or read time-consuming content. We are
spending more time in front of screens than ever, right? It is just that we
would like to consume something that does not require us to apply our mind too
much, and get on with our lives. A stand-up comedian or blogger would build up
a story in some minutes, a reel/tik tok on the other hand would complete its
story in a few seconds! We’re becoming too good at engaging our intuitive
thinking, rather than critical thinking. Also, I find it difficult to fathom that
you will ever be able to engage in critical thinking while sitting on your
toilet seats. It’s just not the right place.
A few days ago, a self-declared “beauty and fashion influencer” posted
a reel alleging harassment and violence by an employee of a food delivery
company. This caught national attention (in spite of a million other things we
could worry about), things went viral and even mainstream media covered this
incident. The delivery guy (“DG”) lost his job (allegedly), with the company
desperately trying to avoid a PR blunder. Within hours, DGs photos were all
over the media, along with the influencers broken nose. Social media had passed
its verdict, and the man was held guilty by millions, including people taking a
dump who were like – “Yeah, definitely guilty”. What got lost, in the midst of
all this conundrum, is perhaps that no one tried to know DGs story. He perhaps didn’t
know much about making reels, I am sure most people with such intense jobs don’t.
IF (and only IF) he is innocent, imagine the plight and trauma of not only him,
but his entire family. I can understand if people are not getting any
assistance from the authorities and they use social media to raise their voice.
However, if you’ve taken the recourse of law, why would you decide to shame
someone publicly and have them prosecuted by people, some of whom would take
five hours to purchase an underwear, but pass their judgement here in two minutes.
Anyway, now people are covering DGs story and the “influencer” is being made
the villain. Ah shit, here we go again!
I fail to understand the concept of influencers. I mean, why in anyone’s
rational mind would I want to get influenced by how someone is dressing up or
doing their make up? Shouldn’t you be getting influenced by ideas, rather than
the superficial, artificial and exaggerated imagery that people create of
themselves? There could be some other word we
could use for them, but I think calling them “influencers” is too much. Would
you not call Mahatma Gandhi or Abraham Lincoln influencers or someone who was
crying on social media rather than taking the due recourse of law? Curious what would
be the Mahatma’s social media bio in these times.
Mahatma Gandhi – First cry on Oct
2, 1869 – Wanderlust (India, South Africa, England) – Lawyered – Dil se Indian
- #Swadeshi #CivilDiobedience #QuitIndia – DM for inquiries ??
I hope not.
Same week, we also had a Meghan Markle and Prince (not anymore) Harry
give an interview to Oprah about some affairs of the royal family. Everyone’s
again heard one side of the story and passed their judgements. Most of them
would gladly get adopted by the Queen if she ever put an advert. Not gonna lie,
even I would.
Our law follows a principle – “1000 culprits can escape, but one innocent should not be punished”. I am not sure the Honorable Judges on Social Media, who give their verdicts based on hashtags, would ever be able to follow this principle.
Until then, let us just hope and pray that this happens to the none of
us. I hope that if you are ever prosecuted, it is by the due course of law and
not by people taking a dump (this joke was too good to be not used multiple
times).
Yours bitterly,
Ashish M.
