It’s politics #trending

Mehak Uppal

While one Indian politician is in news online for going abroad, the other one is hogging the limelight for coming home. Twitter went abuzz with activity to welcome its very own ‘RaGa’, ‘Pappu’ or ‘Yuvraj’ back from his sabbatical with #RahulReturns and #PappuReturns, both trending on Twitter. Don’t know about the General Elections, but Rahul Gandhi certainly gets all the votes online for being the butt of all jokes.

Right before that, #ModiInCanada made news with the characteristic Modi selfies, hugs, handshakes, overflow of warmth et al. The photo-ops are getting so repetitive that one can now almost predict what is to come before such events.

It is to save this freedom of expression and more that many netizens, including celebrities have come out to support net neutrality as #SaveTheInternet trended on Facebook and other social sites for a week. Apparently, so much pressure was built that Flipkart eventually decided to walk out of the Airtel Zero deal. More power to the virtual world to impact the real one is all we can say!

After politicians bashing, one community that netizens love to hate is the traditional media — why else would #SupariJournalists and #Presstitutes make it to the top of the list?

This time what acted as a spark was a statement made in jest by India’s Minister of State for External Affairs, General V.K. Singh, that he did not find rescue operations in Yemen as exciting as his visit to Pakistan Embassy. The news channel Times Now criticised the minister for trivialising the issue.

In response, the General minced no words and tweeted, “Friends what do you expect from presstitutes. Last time, Arnab thought there was ‘O’ in place of ‘E’ #TimesNowDisaster.”

Support for the former Army man came in the form of #presstitutes, especially as the news of successful evacuations from Yemen poured in. Well, to borrow Singh’s recent style of tweeting, let us just say: #MediaSavvy — Having a shrewd understanding of how to deal with publicity and the media.

In this entire episode, most of the people forgot about prostitutes whose identity was tossed around like a swear word. One person we never expected to speak up for this community was Deepika Padukone. After all, it is one thing to feature in a video ‘My Choice’ and quite another to engage in complex discussions. Her video went viral, quite expectedly, and also attracted spoofs in the form of similar expressions from men, dogs, Taliban, Kejriwal and who not.

In all these controversies, one photograph that was widely shared on Facebook and retweeted was that of a child from Syria with heartbreaking innocence in her eyes. Apparently, she mistook the camera for a gun and raised her hands up in surrender. It transcended boundaries and evoked sensitivity for children caught in war torn areas and those displaced by terror.

Spreading hope in this challenging world were the Obamas sharing a family photograph on Facebook to wish the world a Happy Easter, which was liked by more than 24 lakh netizens and shared around one and a half lakh times, which is nothing compared to the “Ellen and Michelle Obama Break It Down” dance video, which was viewed more than 32 lakh times.

Looking at the super cool dance video, one gets afeeling that Michelle is a kind of woman, who would not only choose ‘beautiful’ over ‘average’ but would also encourage others to do so in the Dove video gone viral #ChooseBeautiful. The brand gave a choice to women to pass through two doors labelled ‘Average’ and ‘Beautiful’ and then later interviewed them about what they chose. One may remember that the same brandhad earlier done a campaign ‘Beauty Sketches’ to stir similar issues of self-perception and beauty.

Another video that went viral was that of an April fool’s joke played by a Maths professor who created his own virtual video and then entered into a dialogue with it. There is something about grumpy professors that they continue to amuse us even today!

On a parting shot, if politics, media and society has been discussed, then how can cricket be left behind? Through all these trends in the past days, one consistent topic that managed to stay afloat was IPL. After all, an Indian sans an opinion on cricket is a rare species to find in this world — online or offline.

Face of terror

In all these controversies, one photograph that was widely shared on Facebook and retweeted was that of a child from Syria with heartbreaking innocence in her eyes. Apparently, she mistook the camera for a gun and raised her hands up in surrender. It transcended boundaries and evoked sensitivity for children caught in war torn areas and those displaced by terror.

A matter of choice 

Looking at the super cool dance video, one gets a feeling that Michelle is a kind of woman, who would not only choose ‘beautiful’ over ‘average’ but would also encourage others to do so in the Dove video gone viral #ChooseBeautiful. The brand gave a choice to women to pass through two doors labelled ‘Average’ and ‘Beautiful’ and then later interviewed them about what they chose. The same brand had earlier done a campaign ‘Beauty Sketches’ to stir similar issues of self-perception and beauty.