By: Mohammad Rizwan Bhat
Social media has proved to be a huge revolution in taking human creativity and talent to a whole new level in the matters of publicity and fame. A plethora of platforms have been, and are being, created daily to bring peoples creativity in any field to limelight. Many owe their careers to this virtual blessing called social media. There is no dearth of talented people in any part of the world and social media has provided a breakthrough to many. From writers to musicians and calligraphers to athletes, numerous people have shot to fame, thanks to social media.
While social media has been a boon on one hand, it has been misused to a great extent on the other hand. While the deserving people have come to limelight a lot of undeserving and mediocre content too finds a way to travel. As a result, we have both the good content as well as bad content- all for our own choosing. With 24X7 availability of social media to all, it thereby is used to misinform, misguide, spread fake news, communalise and create fear as well. This is the dark side of the same shining coin and one has to be sure about the fact that everyone that is meant for a reason may be totally misused for vested interests at times.
Facebook, Instagram and YouTube act as bridges between an artist and fame. These platforms can help a hardworking artist touch a certain height. However, simultaneously, needless hype is given to certain people and certain unnecessary content and they are turned into overnight sensations. People go bonkers over this type of content and in a matter of days the same needless content is all over the internet. A person lip-syncs a song or a dialogue running in the background or another person makes foolish faces- all goes viral! Unfortunately, instead of appreciating and sharing intellectual, literary or inspirational content, people prefer to appreciate and share content that is either stupid or derogatory or, at times, propaganda. Irony of the fact is that people term this type of content as “motivational and empowering.”
While some deserving as well as undeserving people thrive due to social media, a lot of really talented people struggle to bring their content to masses. A highly skilled writer fails to gain followers on a certain platform like Instagram and on the other hand a self-proclaimed author having a number of books to his/her name, not to forget printed by an agency which does not have any relation with literature, has thousands of followers on the same platform. People on social media quickly begin to judge talent on the basis of number of followers and go crazy after quantity often overlooking quality. The main problem arises when the talented writer is ignored while the person with followers and a few below average books is termed as a great author.
As a matter of fact, the youngsters often chose the path of those who are famous and not necessarily sensible- this is a bad idea- we must tell them!
