When Rajdeep Sardesai quit Twitter recently or when Barkha Dutt focused attention on the sexist comments of trolls on her Twitter timeline, these journalists brought to the fore a long-acknowledged problem with social media: its tendency to descend into the virulently abusive.
But a new trend, one less explicit but equally sinister, is afoot. Consider the evidence: Abhishek Bachchan leaves his wife Aishwarya's side at the premiere of Sarbjit and social media goes ballistic over whether this meant their marriage is over. Fardeen Khan is photographed at a private event and Twitter trends over the actor's weight gain. Aditi Rao Hydari enters the wrong side on a Mumbai road, and for days her oversight becomes a matter of grave discussion.
Welcome to the 24x7 world of social media bombardment, where every look, nod, flick of the wrist is analysed to death to get pointers on what it might mean for the status of a relationship, the psychological state of a celeb, or perhaps simply, the level of drunkenness after a party. Minor slights that mean nothing are magnified through the never-ending grind of the social media machine and heavy-duty, judgmental opinions arrived at.
There was a time when film journalism was about the actors' steady rise (or fall) through the thickets of that incestuous place called Bollywood. When gossip was real, involving affairs conducted on the sly. When film enthusiasts could plug the B-town grapevine only via monthly magazines like Stardust. It was all in good fun. The stars knew they were being talked about, and the readers were happy to lap up the goings-on in the lives of those distant icons.
But now everything, even the most minuscule occurrence, is game. There is no need for background reportage, no need for confirmation, no quoting "sources". And slight indiscretions are enough to make or mar a celeb. Abhishek is widely recognised as one of the best-behaved men in Bollywood, a gentleman who has always been gracious about the outsize influence of members of his family, including his wife. But no, we are going to "call him out", that favourite social media expression, because of a gesture we saw but otherwise know nothing about.
Why are things this bad? This is mostly an outcome of a changed media landscape where online news outlets must keep the cycle going in order to get clicks. The more salacious the angle, the better it is for ad revenue. Which is why even minor indiscretion, if they can be called indiscretions, end up being analysed on loop, complete with GIFs and tawdry commentary.
We see this happen in nearly all media markets. Look at the hashtags occasioned by Leonardo Di Caprio's sideways glance at Lady Gaga during this year's Golden Globes ceremony, or the shade thrown at Revenant director Alejandro Inarritu for not clapping when Mad Max: Fury Road's informally dressed costume designer, Jenny Beavan, walked past him to collect her Academy Award. From the airtime these controversies received, somebody living in a cave may conjecture that the celeb in question had committed a crime on the lines of OJ Simpson's misdemeanour, giving a whole new meaning to the expression: "If looks could kill!"
To be sure, the ubiquitous prevalence of social media has also done much good. From #OscarsSoWhite to #BlackLivesMatter, social media has taken up with gusto causes that routinely get sidelined in mainstream media. The first instance of Twitter effecting a change on the ground followed the 2009 election of Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, when students used the social media site to organise protests.
But when it comes to entertainment stories, social media cannot help plumb the gutter. In the recent past, much ink, rather bytes, have been expended on the abortive affair between Hrithik Roshan and Kangana Ranaut. Twitter and Facebook became echo chambers in which supporters of either actor traded barbs and accusations in language that would make the street squirm. Adhyayan Suman's damning testimony against Kangana provided fresh fuel to the fire, and high-velocity expressions drowning in stereotypes made the rounds of social media.
This ready tendency to bracket and reduce complex stories to bite-sized nuggets is what is most problematic about social media activism run amok. Every story, every incident is quickly distilled through one offence-taking prism or another, and the story is allowed to roll in a giant ball of self-congratulatory marinating. If Abhishek moved away from Aishwarya at Sarbjit's premier, he must be an MCP; if Fardeen is overweight, he must be depressed over a failed career; if Aditi was on the wrong side of the road, something debased must be going on in her life.
With little to no evidence, every story, however slight, is hijacked to provide grist to the offence mill. No consideration is paid to what this can do to the lives of the people who are put, without their consent, in the dock. The media machine becomes a never-ending cycle, with every day bringing a new reason to tch-tch. Welcome to the shockingly blase world of social media, where your past reputation or present truth does not matter. Make a wrong move and you will be sent to the gallows.
