Had been thinking about this for a few days now and had been inking it in the mind and finally sat down to write it down. Sorry that it’s too long. But given 144 words can be easily misunderstood , I wanted to make it as clear as possible.
When Christopher Nolan made Inception, I am not sure if he considered the easier method to plant thoughts and perception into people's heads. Rather than going through the complex dream intrusion and all that risk, the simpler technique is being perfected these days through the elementary and much more effective method of media and specifically social media for the new smart phone generation of our time.
This isn't new. Media has always played a crucial hand in determining what our perception should be. And even before that our text books of our school curriculum has been determining what our perception should be. If someone denies this fact then they are only being naive. To consider that our thoughts are our own and not induced by these external forces is living in blissful ignorance.
What is more worrying now though is what the perception agents have been doing recently. Like the agencies that can manipulate your webpage to Search Engines through the algorithms so that it comes in the top 20 pages of your search , I am sure there are professional organizations that promote someone's image in a positive way to build a brand so successful that sometimes someone can become an elected leader of the nation even.
I am not going to dive into the moralities of building someone's image positively through paid brand building. However it is extremely disturbing to see the opposite of it to slander someone without any facts whatsoever.
We have all been guilty of either resending or not rebuking forwarded messages stating some fact like statements slandering someone's image. Just cite something like Washington Journal 21st Jul 1992 - Person X was accused of involving in blah blah blah. 99% of us don't have the urge to verify those facts if they are true or not and even if the 1% do try and verify they don't spend the same amount of energy rebuking the story as false unless this person they are talking about has a brand building agency that can effectively and intelligently handle it. Perfect example is when someone published a fake story of Mr Modi sleeping in the parliament and within minutes there were multiple responses with the full video of that picture with a great story defeating that attempt.
Ok it's already gone long and I haven't even approached the subject of my post. I am extremely disappointed and frustrated with the recent negative energy that has been focussed against our entertainers. I am neither a great fan or have a massive liking to Aamir Khan or Silambarasan. But what's happened to them is tragic and if this doesn't stop here, none of us can feel safe eventually. I am just using those 2 guys as examples as they are the most recent and most disturbing.
Unless you had been living in a deserted island for the last few months most of you would know what happened to Aamir Khan for something he never even said. Yes that's right folks who still believe he said it. He didn't even say he wants to go out of the country. It was a line that was taken without it's prefix and suffix and blown out of proportions. It's like if some X says "When we went to watch this movie we had 2 ice creams in our hand, and when the movie started I was really disappointed, when one of the ice creams fell down". Next day the media and social media will pronounce "Mr X was really disappointed when the movie started" and that's all the story will be. The poor ice cream will not feature in the news anywhere.
What happened to Silambarasan a.k.a Simbu was even more tragic. To the people who do not know this story. He is an entertainer in the Tamil Movie industry with very few friends in the industry. He composes and writes his own songs in his movies at times and also releases music albums. He had written and sung a song for his own collection and had held it digitally in his private storage. The song was theoretically like "Why the hell do boys love and then mourn about the failure" . Instead of "Hell" there was a muted beep which meant it was up to someone's interpretation what the word was and if you are familiar with the word when someone says it in sentence you can understand it. Someone got a copy of the song and released it on youtube - just the audio version without his knowledge or consent. That's when the witchhunt started. He was pronounced as the ultimate sinner of all times. His effigies were burnt, police complaints were filed against him. Police registered FIR and non-bailable arrest warrants were issued against him and FIR was filed in different cities. There is a rumour that separate police teams have been setup for a nationwide manhunt. Ok that's a bit exaggerated. It was not a "nationwide" man hunt. It was state wide. As the airports were all on alert preventing him escaping the country.
He didn't release the song. He didn't promote it. But the small group of protestors blowing this out of proportion had some of these "valid" arguments against him
- Rapists in this country are raping because of this song
- Violence against women are because of this song
- Children will get corrupted because of this song
- Why did he put the song where it could be compromised
There was one guy who supported Simbu saying guys this is not a huge crime in one of the facebook posts. There were 10 people jumping on that guy and one guy was saying "I saw your profile pictures in your profile. Is that your daughter in your profile picture along with you. If your daughteh r is molested because of this song, how would you feel. Stop defending such criminals online".
There were a few side attacks on this. Music director Anirudh was accused of composing music for the song without a shred of evidence or connection. Someone posted a photo of Simbu and Anirudh sitting together on one of the copies of the Youtube Songs and that was evidence enough for everyone even though Simbu made a public statement saying Anirudh is in no way connected to this song.
Even some of the media magazines i had respected continued to write articles against Anirudh days after this. I can understand the media is biased. But didn't realize how low they were. I refused to acknowledge the term "Presstitues" until recently. But now I do.
But what about the people who do exactly the same thing in the Social Media.
This is the subject and motive for my post. They are called Trolls. But I think that is too decent a word to be used for such shameful beings.
What gives us the bloody Right to do a witch hunt on our entertainers for expressing their individual and personal opinion without pointing out or demeaning another individual?
And what's our basic motivation? Because we don't like their ideology? Or is it because we are Jealous of their success and fame?
And Why on God's name should those people do social service.
They didn't swear under an oath to protect us or serve us. Their profession is entertainment. Period. We made them demi-gods that's our mistake.
Some articles say they are influencers. What nonsense. Your news editor has 100 times more influencing power than them.
If I was one of those 2, I would have picked out the 100 most demeaning social media posts and did what Karti Chidambaram did against the guy who posted offensive message against him on twitter. He filed an FIR and the person responsible for the social media post was arrested and faced a possibility of up to 3 years in Jail.
Or the other incident where 2 girls were arrested for a facebook post linked to a Maharashtra Political Leader.
At this point some of you might be fuming about "Freedom of Speech" and "Independence" and all that crap. I fumed the same way in both those incident when the tweeter was arrested and those 2 girls were arrested.
But hold on, if Aamir Khan and Simbu didn't have their rights to "Freedom of Speech" without individually demeaning anyone, why these trolls in social media should have freedom of speech. Either you have the freedom of speech or you don't. Period. You can't have double standards.
If this article has made any impact on you, then stand up to those trolls who post demeaning and under the belt comments about entertainers or public figures in your whatsapp groups. Stand up to those people who forward insulting jokes in your facebook friend lists.
If you are one of those people who thinks Sardarji Jokes are funny despite the fact that it insults a community , then you are beyond reasoning. Move on and have a happy life.
When Christopher Nolan made Inception, I am not sure if he considered the easier method to plant thoughts and perception into people's heads. Rather than going through the complex dream intrusion and all that risk, the simpler technique is being perfected these days through the elementary and much more effective method of media and specifically social media for the new smart phone generation of our time.
This isn't new. Media has always played a crucial hand in determining what our perception should be. And even before that our text books of our school curriculum has been determining what our perception should be. If someone denies this fact then they are only being naive. To consider that our thoughts are our own and not induced by these external forces is living in blissful ignorance.
What is more worrying now though is what the perception agents have been doing recently. Like the agencies that can manipulate your webpage to Search Engines through the algorithms so that it comes in the top 20 pages of your search , I am sure there are professional organizations that promote someone's image in a positive way to build a brand so successful that sometimes someone can become an elected leader of the nation even.
I am not going to dive into the moralities of building someone's image positively through paid brand building. However it is extremely disturbing to see the opposite of it to slander someone without any facts whatsoever.
We have all been guilty of either resending or not rebuking forwarded messages stating some fact like statements slandering someone's image. Just cite something like Washington Journal 21st Jul 1992 - Person X was accused of involving in blah blah blah. 99% of us don't have the urge to verify those facts if they are true or not and even if the 1% do try and verify they don't spend the same amount of energy rebuking the story as false unless this person they are talking about has a brand building agency that can effectively and intelligently handle it. Perfect example is when someone published a fake story of Mr Modi sleeping in the parliament and within minutes there were multiple responses with the full video of that picture with a great story defeating that attempt.
Ok it's already gone long and I haven't even approached the subject of my post. I am extremely disappointed and frustrated with the recent negative energy that has been focussed against our entertainers. I am neither a great fan or have a massive liking to Aamir Khan or Silambarasan. But what's happened to them is tragic and if this doesn't stop here, none of us can feel safe eventually. I am just using those 2 guys as examples as they are the most recent and most disturbing.
Unless you had been living in a deserted island for the last few months most of you would know what happened to Aamir Khan for something he never even said. Yes that's right folks who still believe he said it. He didn't even say he wants to go out of the country. It was a line that was taken without it's prefix and suffix and blown out of proportions. It's like if some X says "When we went to watch this movie we had 2 ice creams in our hand, and when the movie started I was really disappointed, when one of the ice creams fell down". Next day the media and social media will pronounce "Mr X was really disappointed when the movie started" and that's all the story will be. The poor ice cream will not feature in the news anywhere.
What happened to Silambarasan a.k.a Simbu was even more tragic. To the people who do not know this story. He is an entertainer in the Tamil Movie industry with very few friends in the industry. He composes and writes his own songs in his movies at times and also releases music albums. He had written and sung a song for his own collection and had held it digitally in his private storage. The song was theoretically like "Why the hell do boys love and then mourn about the failure" . Instead of "Hell" there was a muted beep which meant it was up to someone's interpretation what the word was and if you are familiar with the word when someone says it in sentence you can understand it. Someone got a copy of the song and released it on youtube - just the audio version without his knowledge or consent. That's when the witchhunt started. He was pronounced as the ultimate sinner of all times. His effigies were burnt, police complaints were filed against him. Police registered FIR and non-bailable arrest warrants were issued against him and FIR was filed in different cities. There is a rumour that separate police teams have been setup for a nationwide manhunt. Ok that's a bit exaggerated. It was not a "nationwide" man hunt. It was state wide. As the airports were all on alert preventing him escaping the country.
He didn't release the song. He didn't promote it. But the small group of protestors blowing this out of proportion had some of these "valid" arguments against him
- Rapists in this country are raping because of this song
- Violence against women are because of this song
- Children will get corrupted because of this song
- Why did he put the song where it could be compromised
There was one guy who supported Simbu saying guys this is not a huge crime in one of the facebook posts. There were 10 people jumping on that guy and one guy was saying "I saw your profile pictures in your profile. Is that your daughter in your profile picture along with you. If your daughteh r is molested because of this song, how would you feel. Stop defending such criminals online".
There were a few side attacks on this. Music director Anirudh was accused of composing music for the song without a shred of evidence or connection. Someone posted a photo of Simbu and Anirudh sitting together on one of the copies of the Youtube Songs and that was evidence enough for everyone even though Simbu made a public statement saying Anirudh is in no way connected to this song.
Even some of the media magazines i had respected continued to write articles against Anirudh days after this. I can understand the media is biased. But didn't realize how low they were. I refused to acknowledge the term "Presstitues" until recently. But now I do.
But what about the people who do exactly the same thing in the Social Media.
This is the subject and motive for my post. They are called Trolls. But I think that is too decent a word to be used for such shameful beings.
What gives us the bloody Right to do a witch hunt on our entertainers for expressing their individual and personal opinion without pointing out or demeaning another individual?
And what's our basic motivation? Because we don't like their ideology? Or is it because we are Jealous of their success and fame?
And Why on God's name should those people do social service.
They didn't swear under an oath to protect us or serve us. Their profession is entertainment. Period. We made them demi-gods that's our mistake.
Some articles say they are influencers. What nonsense. Your news editor has 100 times more influencing power than them.
If I was one of those 2, I would have picked out the 100 most demeaning social media posts and did what Karti Chidambaram did against the guy who posted offensive message against him on twitter. He filed an FIR and the person responsible for the social media post was arrested and faced a possibility of up to 3 years in Jail.
Or the other incident where 2 girls were arrested for a facebook post linked to a Maharashtra Political Leader.
At this point some of you might be fuming about "Freedom of Speech" and "Independence" and all that crap. I fumed the same way in both those incident when the tweeter was arrested and those 2 girls were arrested.
But hold on, if Aamir Khan and Simbu didn't have their rights to "Freedom of Speech" without individually demeaning anyone, why these trolls in social media should have freedom of speech. Either you have the freedom of speech or you don't. Period. You can't have double standards.
If this article has made any impact on you, then stand up to those trolls who post demeaning and under the belt comments about entertainers or public figures in your whatsapp groups. Stand up to those people who forward insulting jokes in your facebook friend lists.
If you are one of those people who thinks Sardarji Jokes are funny despite the fact that it insults a community , then you are beyond reasoning. Move on and have a happy life.
