Just going through the dawn from a few days ago, I came across an article titled “Virality & Vileness”. You can go to the website to read the article to draw your own conclusions, but from what I inferred, the author of the article deduces that virality is “vilified” for 2 reasons
It challenges patriarchy
It disrupts “elite institutions’” ability to decide who gets to be famous.
Let’s take them one by one.
It is no secret that women are on the receiving end of victimisation in this country. This is one aspect in which we do not differentiate in terms of caste, colour or religion and most of these crimes may be attributed to patriarchy. Patriarchy, as defined by dictionary, is “social organisation marked by the supremacy of the father in the clan or family, the legal dependence of wives and children, and the reckoning of descent and inheritance in the male line”. To the dictionary, patriarchy is a noun. But to me, it is an ideology. An ideology of male dominance which is not just pushed forward by the men in the society but through a very viciously built system that has prevailed over generations engulfing the mothers who were once the victims of the same system they now champion.
Patriarchy, in its essence, is the belief system that objectifies women and confines them within the realms of a defined boundary drawn by the social norms of a given society. Before moving forward, let's go back to July of last year and briefly discuss some cases from a year and a half ago.
Virality, on the other hand, is not confined to a caste or a gender. Neither to a religion nor to a culture. There is absolutely no basis to predict what would go viral and what wouldn’t. There are stories that go viral. There are people that go viral. There are opinions that go viral. There are memes that go viral. Some examples have been a famous Pakistani Actor taking a selfie with burning liquor, a girl in a video showing her car, her entourage and her party, the student who secured a distinction in an international exam, a good looking Chaaye wala, an uncle who punches his fist in the air reaffirming his support for Lahore (I’m guessing) and if memory serves me right there used to be a Awais Lovely back when facebook was just finding its roots.
Let me be very clear: By no means do I believe that the culture of going viral is any sort of revolution. It is more like destruction. I don’t mean that in the iconoclastic terms of the debate that the article on dawn pointed out. No, Sir.
Pick the chaaye wala example. The Internet saw a pretty man who was serving tea and made him famous overnight. I slightly recall seeing him on tv and getting endorsements. Just think of what it represents. Pakistan has a major issue of child labourers. If you go out and sit at a chaaye dhaba or a mechanic, you will realise there are hundreds of thousands of underage children who are earning bread for their families. They would love just a few thousands extra to maybe buy ration for their home, medicine for their mothers, shoes for their sisters. These are the children who would be served better if our society paid a little attention to them. Their fault? The pretty chaaye boy went viral; they didn’t.
Pick the example of the student who secured an international distinction (or was it two?) in an examination. She was hailed by millions in Pakistan. You visited linkedin, facebook or twitter and saw her face. You’d see her everywhere. Interviews, endorsements, you name it. Even our science minister of the time hailed her achievement. No doubt, getting a world distinction is a terrific achievement but a simple search of the website of the body that awarded her the international distinction will show you that for the very same exams, there are Pakistani students, from areas much more remote, who have performed even better than her. Can anyone recall their names?
Third and the most grim example I bring is from a year and a half ago. I’ll briefly discuss 3 cases.
Case 1: Qurat Ul Ain
Qurat Ul Ain had been subjected to torture by her husband for years and yet her parents encouraged her to stay with him. The result: She was brutally beaten and then killed by her husband.
Case 2: Saima Ali
Saima Ali was on the receiving end of a brutal attack in which her father opened fire on the family killing Saima’s mother and injuring her and her brother.
Case 3: Noor Muqaddam
Noor was kidnapped and then brutally murdered and beheaded by her killer.
Justice was served in only one of the 3 cases. I am sure most of us can’t even recall the other two cases even though they all took place within a few weeks of each other.
Just one of these cases caught the attention of the internet as it was publicly pursued on the internet and justice was ensured. What do you think happened to the other two? Were the other murders any less despicable?
Virality is a dangerous thing. Virality is more like winning a lottery. It has nothing to do with hard work. It is mostly just pure luck. If all of us were to buy a lottery ticket and wait for our luck to turn, what do you think would happen? Same is the case with virality. And are “institutions” against this? I don’t think so. Today’s brands are quick and sharp. They have realised the importance of viral content and they readily adapt to change in trends and influencers to leverage their market position. However, the culture of virality has indeed poisoned us.
The need to produce potentially viral content and the want to consume such content will destroy our generations. Our attention spans are now shorter and we can only consume content in bits form. Open youtube in incognito mode for instance. It will show you all the content people in your geographical location are consuming. For Pakistan, you will not see one informational channel. There’s just content that’s been put up for you to consume and kill your time with. Virality is a dangerous tool and “elite institutions” are a party to it.