Trial by #Hashtags

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.

2020 Corona Games

game - an activity that one engages in for amusement or fun

Lockdown Day 26,

Mumbai,

India

                 Day 26, but it seems months. We’re all holding up, for now. We will stay put, because of all creatures, humans are the best at adapting. Of course, we haven’t been that great to adapt to alternatives of plastic and fossil fuels for years, but who cares (no immediate threat, eh?). There will be a cure for this virus, eventually. In this battle, we will win – it is only a matter of when!

                While this cure comes along, it’s important for us to be engaged. It’s important that you find things to do so that you do not end up becoming Joaquin Phoenix’s “Joker” with your inmates. Brace yourselves, we have 2020 Corona Games! Participation in these games is not compulsory, but it will definitely make you look cooler! These games are inclusive - open for all, dumb or intelligent.

Here is a list of these games, for your convenience.

1.    Dalgona Coffee Challenge – One of the best things to come out of corona virus. We would’ve never known this form of coffee without the pandemic. The most difficult part here – the coffee milk is to be sourced from a unicorn. It is not a challenge in any other case.

2.  My spouse knows to cook challenge – Men, you never cared to upload an Instagram story when your mom cooked biryani, stop making a big deal out of the poha cooked by your wife. And women, just because your husband has learnt to boil water, stop drooling over it. Be a feminist and understand that men knowing to cook is an essential skill, it’s not an amazing talent. If he did not have this essential skill earlier, what does it say about your choices?

And for God’s sake guys, stop calling them ‘best husband/wife’ if you have been married just once in your life. You can’t be the best if you ran the race alone.

3.    Saree Challenge - “Thank you my fraand for challenging me. These are difficult times, so I will spread some positivity here. Let me upload my own picture in a saree with a copied caption.” Need a microscope to find a challenge here.

Jokes apart, shame on men, actually. We need to spread our own version of positivity. We need a boxer shorts challenge – that’s how we attend our video meetings.

4.    Facebook third party apps – They would gain ‘authorised access’ to your profile and tell you what your good and bad qualities are. Introspection is difficult anyways.  

5.   Ludo Screenshots – Tag your friends and celebrate your victory. Thanks for sharing - everyone in your friend list really cared to know about the result.

            Let’s look forward to more challenges. Who knows how long we would be in this strange situation. Take care of your mental health, and of people around you. Stay connected - keep making those video calls with your loved ones and please upload the screenshots everywhere.

Try to be positive, or not?

Yours bitterly,

Ashish M.

P.S. – Thanks to my classmate Rahul for sharing his frustration about one of these games and inspiring this post. Keep your suggestions flowing, folks!

Caption That!

Caption – A line, or few lines, used to elaborate a photograph

Bio – A few self-descriptive lines used to give a first impression of you

Social media is good. It’s good to connect and sometimes, maintain that connection. It’s good since we cannot meet people because we spend too much time on social media. It’s good because some of us are human and can forget birthdays. And the best and most important thing about social media is that it is great tool for stalking! If you’ve not stalked anyone through social media, you do not belong to the place.

Social media is sometimes not about others but about giving too much importance to one-self. Hence, when you see a picture captioned as “self-love”, please do not get any other ideas. It just means that someone is just feeling obsessed about themselves and that needed a picture, which was duly taken. That picture was also required to be uploaded somewhere, because “self-love” isn’t always the most satisfying if it is kept to one self.

There are other crazy captions. There are pictures which invoke the souls of mighty people. Hence, we get pictures captioned with words from Gandhi, Dr. Kalam, Confucius, Swami Vivekanand, Martin Luther King Jr., Oscar Wilde and others. That is still alright. My heart sinks when people put a quote from Mark Twain and credit it to a Hollywood actor!

Bios are quite difficult to understand as well. I am Sagittarius*, so I will behave like a jerk on Sundays. I am a Leo*, so I will be over-sensitive and over-dramatic at whatever I do. I go about being a prince/princess, because I come from a kingdom called “Nowhere”. The most creative people announce their birthdays by declaring, “I cut cakes on …………….”. These aren’t just your regular captions and bios, these are big time exaggerations.

Here are some interesting and over exploited captions.

Finally married

Am I the only one to think that this makes it sound all so desperate, for whatever reason it may be?

Mah life, mah rulezzzz…

They have restrictions at home and won’t be served dinner if they reached post 11 PM.

Perfectly flawed

Too many flaws that I lost the count

Meeting you was my destiny and falling in love was beyond my control (Every engagement/marriage pic ever)

Couldn’t fight those hormones any longer without society's approval.

Wanderlust

I am on a solo trip, but now I feel really lonely and empty and would upload a picture of every tree that I find.

I am not saying I have never used any exaggerated captions before. I may have and might again use one in the future. I would not realize it, though. There would be someone writing a blog about it then!

Yours bitterly,

Ashish M.

(* - Written with zero knowledge/interest in astrology. Any resemblance to reality is purely co-incidental)