How to Say Nothing…

IF THERE WERE ANY LESSONS TO BE DRAWN from how social media was put to use this year, it was only that some of us really need to shut up. This year, the clamour created by people’s urge to say something, to add to the noise, became overwhelming. Much of it was caused by the desire to show that one had a deep understanding of issues; that there was a Václav Havel in each one of them; that they were connected, and aware, and not a spent force. The other was the inner need for virtue signalling, to show that one was on the right side of history. To add to it, if one also wanted to display what one thought of as razor-sharp wit, that only made it worse.

And then the inability to resist taking a cheap potshot—it caused otherwise well-meaning people to say things like “Galwan says Hi”, or to believe that on some World Happiness Index, India is below Yemen and Myanmar.

People—individuals—posted their views on everything: Iran, Ukraine, Dalits, G20, Palestine, Urdu, among a spectrum of other subjects. Most times, one had nothing to add to these, but still felt the need to tweet a piece of news around them, using a few hollow superlatives. As a result, the Indian Twitter timeline sometimes reminded one of a typical accident spot where onlookers surround a victim, and say all kinds of things, but there is no urgency to really help the victim. Like those onlookers, these quote-tweets created a flood of information, which rendered itself useless. This phenomenon is summed up beautifully by media expert Veronica Barassi, who quotes a Spanish ecological activist in one of her essays on social media and democracy: “Everybody says that there is no censorship on the internet, or at least only in part. But that is not true. Online censorship is applied through the excess of banal content that distracts people from serious or collective issues.” In a nutshell, we have been saying too much without adding anything relevant. Delhi people will identify with this sentiment: Twitter is now like the T3 airport terminal.

In between, here are the highlights of a few things that happened. As Elon Musk took over, many said that they do not feel the need to have a blue tick. In their hearts, though, they secretly hoped that Musk would respond to them as he did to the writer Stephen King. This would, they hoped, enable them to claim that they also had a place in world history as the ones who brought the mighty Musk to his knees. Well, good luck with that. Many who somehow did not get it in all these years, despite tagging Twitter and Jack Dorsey and many Indian executives several times, were quite chuffed that others who, according to them, got it undeservedly would have to part with it.

The leftwing and the right spent a lot of time in proving that Muslims/Hindus had more integrity than each other. This reached a sickening peak by the time the news of Maharashtra girl Shraddha Walkar being chopped to pieces by her Muslim boyfriend in Delhi became a spectacle. In the following days, both sides posted a deluge of cases where the perpetrators of similar crimes were either Muslims or Hindus, depending on which side one was on.

Amidst all this, like the most oppressive of optimists who find a silver lining in every cloud, many found something to attribute to Prime Minister Narendra Modi in tweets (both good and bad) about things that had nothing to do with him, except maybe the presence of a vowel in the second place of his name. Rahul Gandhi also hogged a lot of space with his Bharat Jodo Yatra, where he was seen hugging people, holding hands, and randomly breaking into runs. While his supporters, mainly his party members, QTed such pictures with Urdu poetry involving words like hausla (courage) and parwaaz (flight), his detractors tried to bring it down with all tropes available at their disposal, including the ‘P’ word.

The Indian Twitter timeline sometimes reminded one of a typical accident spot where onlookers surround a victim, and say all kinds of things, but there is no urgency to really help the victim. Like those onlookers, these quote-tweets created a flood of information, which rendered itself useless

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Then the “Twitter Files” news broke in which the senior Indian-origin Twitter executive Vijaya Gadde was claimed to have suppressed adverse news about Joe Biden’s son. It was shared by Musk and endorsed by saying “here we go”. Many on the Indian rightwing spectrum who have accused Gadde of sabotaging their views also endorsed it quite enthusiastically.

Earlier in the year, in another “files”, the movie Kashmir Files kept Indian Twitter occupied for several weeks. As the movie became a big hit, its critics shared clips of moviegoers in a few halls making hateful comments about Muslim film stars. Towards the end of the year, the movie again came to attention after Israeli filmmaker Nadav Lapid dissed the film, calling it “vulgar” and “propaganda”. It sent so much hate in the DM of the Israeli ambassador in India overnight that not only had he to dissociate the Israeli state from Lapid’s views but also berate him for disrespecting Indian hospitality.

WHAT ELSE HAPPENED? THE USUAL TV ANCHORS, depending on who they are, received their share of brickbats and bouquets. A lot of criminals got shot in their legs in Uttar Pradesh. A lot of videos of dog abuse and people getting sudden cardiac attacks and dying were also shared. Some reactions to international figures reminded one of this small-time leftist trade union of sorts that released a press release during then American President Bill Clinton’s India visit in the year 2000. It said that the organisation has warned Clinton not to come to Laxmi Nagar in the Trans Yamuna area of Delhi, failing which there will be consequences.

In a parallel world, some dreamy things happened on Instagram. Here, people usually were more absorbed in their own lives. They made nice reels, of dance and songs, jokes, exercise and diet routines, sunsets, and beauty tips like how to drink cucumber-infused water. Too many small-time businesses cropped up and, depending on what you clicked, the algorithm kept up throwing these on your timeline till you realised you had bought too many things, most of which you did not even know of, let alone want them. Some background scores also became viral and were used for every possible thing—from reels of lovers holding hands to journeys through old ruins. Prominent among them was the old Hindi film song ‘Mera dil yeh pukaare aaja’, which became a rage on the platform after a girl in Pakistan danced on it. Influencers made money, and some great desi innovation happened in reel-making.

In all this, the good old Facebook was somehow pale in comparison. Many have now shifted to Instagram, and it has been left to the RWA uncles to share their WhatsApp forwards on Nehru and to write “God bless you” on their daughter-in-law’s wall.

It was also pertinent to note how people’s personalities changed once they shifted from one platform to another, especially from Twitter to Instagram. Mark Zuckerberg once said that the days of having a different image (for different sets of people) were over. He should have looked at the man up in arms against everything on Twitter sharing videos of flowers on Insta. But how long will that transformation last until Insta becomes yet another harbinger of doom, much beyond doom scrolling? Fingers crossed for 2023.

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Rahul Pandita

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