Well that’s one place where everybody has an opinion. Each different from the other. Each trying to sound more intelligent than the other. Every one falling head over heels to spit out the first opinion, the first counter-opinion on the first opinion and the madness multiplies in no time. 100 RTs in ten minutes, 200 favs in 20 minutes and the first opinionator gets a high on opium. Tweets gleefully the statistics and this again gets some 300 RTs and 400 favs. The circus multiplies in geometric proportions. Each spitting venom on the other,
each trying to devour the other , each trying to eat the other alive. And most of them displaying this gore and
bravery behind a thick impenetrable mask of fake identities, fake photos, fake
names and an either grossly over-made up bio or no bio at all. Pussy-footed, pussillanimous creatures
masquerading as Alexander the Great.
Dimwits passing off as Doctors
in Philosophy. Jupiter sized egos
trampling upon the helpless and the meek.
Welcome to Twitter!
People used to say, with some justification, that the
proliferation of Tasmac liquor shops in Tamilnadu, open almost round the clock, is sure to spawn mass liver-cyrrhosis in the society. That may or may not be debatable but Twitter
is sure to leave behind us a whole
nation of mental wrecks, sycophants, megalomaniacs and incurable hysterics. At least in India. It is surprising that any serious study on
the behavioural patterns of its users has so far glossed over the surface
only. The core is boiling and smouldering and is largely ignored in any study. This core will implode with furious force one day upon our faces. A mass hysteria like situation is in the
offing, which will happen sooner than later.
One reason may be the proclivity of the press and other
media to make celebrities out of ordinary tweeple by broadcasting their tweets
for the consumption of the whole world.
The media is convinced that the guy with more followers in twitter than the Mahatma
Gandhi in real life will be able to make or break world opinion. Poor judgement that. Governments are not and ought not to be
elected by pseudo-opinion makers but by the multitudes that do not have access
to the net. The tweeps may continue to delude themselves that they make or mar the world but reality has it otherwise. A Lalu may start tweeting out of an imaginary necessity. A Modi may post gems to impress NextGen, whatever it means. But among a 100 billion, the Indian tweeple are only a proverbial drop in the ocean and Lalu & Modi need not have bothered at all. Considering, on election day, the super-intelligentsia of twitter may not even bother to line up in the polling station queue at all. This mindless pumping up by the media of
already heavily bloated egos make the celebrity tweeps think they rule the
world and their opinions shape the fortunes of an entire nation. It is another story that these very celebrities, when they go overboard
and find themselves caught on the wrong side of the law, whine, cringe, weep
and prostrate, crying hoarse that personal
freedom is at peril.
Personal freedom? My
foot. No body grudges one’s personal
freedom as long as it does not cross the Laxman Rekha. Now that's a very thin line, getting thinner by the day. One need only look at the thousands of very
recent tweets that have already crucified the politician husband as the
murderer of his wife, that have ceaselessly made fun of scores of politicians,
actors, scientists, diplomats, and every one, without caring to contemplate for
a second about its effects it might have on the personality concerned, at least
at a mental level. This warfare that is being unleashed is mostly one-sided with the attacked not even getting an opportunity to counter attack. They know not where the adversary is, just the arrows keep coming at you with shop-floor like precision. More of a kind of Rama vs Vali warfare, arrows shot from an invisible foe.
Personal freedom? Incredible. You can’t have
freedom without responsibility. You
can’t call yourself a twitter celebrity if the only vocation you excel at is
throwing shit on others. You can’t clamour for personal freedom if that freedom
licences you to throw garbage at others.
Agreed, some fun, some harmless banter, some humour is called for in the
daily dreary routine called life but, the ability to segregate banter from
banality and humour from hostility is what really makes a twitter celebrity.
Not that everything is rotten in that twitter space. It does provide an outlet for, as I said, humour, creativity, opinions, well-edited and constructed in 140 characters. As long as the users do not overdo anything, twitter could well be the invention of the century. But that's asking too much, not to overdo. Humour is not much appreciated and followed by the herd used to trail celebrity shepherds but gossip, slander and outright arrogance find many takers. More the celebrity shepherd shoots off his mouth on practically everything under the sun, more the number in his dumb herd. As far as the real-life celebrities go, most of the twitter traffic is only one way, which is, celebrity to his herd and not the reverse. Any reply-bleat from the herd would be met with stony silence, a condescending, deafening and insulting silence. Following a real celebrity, thus, makes no sense. Making celebrities of the nuts with large followers (many of them created with fake IDs) makes utter nonsense. The only sensible thing to do in twitter is to favourite the tweets on their merits and not go overboard. Again, this is easier said, than done.
During Emergency, one slogan of the State we heard everywhere was "rumour mongers are nation's enemies". At what stage the "R" in rumour got replaced by "H" is still a mystery. Twitter could be one beautiful forum for humour but we have been, in general, largely hostile towards humour. Right from the 'cattle class' to 'mango man' to 'chaiwalla', the humour mongers didn't know what hit them when met with so much anger and hostility. Meaningless, idiotic hostility. So all that remains in twitter now is filth, muck, hatred and goonery. Buffoonery as well.
Yes, Twitter regales. Twitter bridges chasms. Twitter adds spice to life. Twitter has the potential to dramatically alter the way we live. But we forget that to realise its full potential, it is not just enough to live. We have to let others live too. Thus, beyond a limit, Twitter kills too. Period.
