What is a newspaper’s responsibility? To tell a story? Or draw eyeballs to that story in the first place?
I’m not one for pop-motivational quotes on calendars and posters, but I love reading stories about people who inspire through their lives. Many of them, unsurprisingly, are sportspeople. For most of us, that level of control over one’s life, the focus and discipline needed to become great in sport, in something, is a distant dream – heck, I can’t bring myself to commit to swimming three times a week. So I was riveted by the long interview with Olympic diver Tom Daley The Guardian ran on 18 July. It’s a fantastic interview, describing what it is to live a public life even as one strives for personal glory. “The competition is ferocious, particularly from the Chinese, and there is no margin for error… But there was more… there was the recent death of Daley’s father, the bullying at school and on Twitter, and the humiliation he had suffered in Beijing four years earlier, when his synchro partner Blake Aldridge (26 at the time) blamed the then 14-year-old for their failure to win a medal.”
This is just the second paragraph of the over-4000-word story, whose headline was: Tom Daley: ‘I always knew I was attracted to guys’.
I was dismayed. The story speaks of physical strain (torn triceps). It talks about dealing with a father’s brain cancer, becoming Britain’s youngest competitor at the Beijing Olympics, what it’s like to be a diver. (“He hits the water at 35mph, and has said that every time he dives it’s like a car crash. Even when he gets it right, it hurts.”) Then there’s the training schedule: “11 sessions a week in the gym and dry dive, 11 pool sessions, and one session of ballet. Each session lasts between two and three hours.” And the diet: “egg whites and spinach and a bowl of porridge for breakfast, chicken and pulses for lunch, and salmon or chicken with steamed vegetables for dinner. Every day the same regime, same food, same 10pm bedtime.” It’s the stuff of an Oscar-ready Hollywood biopic. But the headline makes Daley’s life seem like an episode from a teen soap opera.
On one level, it’s easy to understand why a publication would resort to such a suggestive headline. With so much content out there on the web, a headline like “Tom Daley eats spinach and sleeps at 10pm” might not grab as many eyeballs. There’s a Hollywood angle too – Daley’s partner is screenwriter Dustin Lance Black, who won an Oscar for his screenplay for Milk. And as everyone knows, cinema sells. But while I could see the logic behind this headline, I couldn’t accept its trivialisation of Daley’s efforts, the way it telescoped his life to just one thing.
This isn’t about the story itself. This is a question about a newspaper’s responsibility. Is it merely to tell the story, or to draw eyeballs to that story in the first place? Take the case of American football player Michael Sam – let’s stick with sportspeople, though this is really about all public figures, all high-profile achievers – who created history by coming out as gay. When he made the announcement, in February 2014, this New York Times headline made perfect sense: N.F.L. Prospect Michael Sam Proudly Says What Teammates Knew: He’s Gay. Because that was the story. Sam’s gayness was the issue – because of how the very “macho” NFL would react, and because of how the announcement would affect Sam’s prospects of being drafted by a team, which would now have an extremely visible player on its hands. An assistant coach said, on nbcsports.com, “You shouldn’t have to live your life in secrecy… but do you really want to be the top of the conversation for everything without ever having played a down in this league?”
But Daley’s story isn’t about his coming out. That story broke in April 2014, with this perfectly appropriate Daily Mail headline: Five months after coming out as a bisexual, Tom Daley declares ‘I am a gay man now’ and his current relationship is ‘all good’. A whole year later – centuries in this digital age – is this still news? Is this angle the only one readers are supposed to be interested in?
Such a headline is a problem for quite a few reasons. One, many people do not have the time or the patience to read long stories, so the headline plays a huge part in what they take away from it. Two, whenever there’s talk of someone from the LGBTQ community, there’s the tendency to focus on their sexuality. (For contrast, see the August 2014 Sports Illustrated interview with Roger Federer. It talks about his wife and kids, but the headline is sedate, befitting the great man: Roger Federer on historic career: ‘I never thought it would be like this’.) Then again, Federer’s personal life has been as sedate as that headline, which leads me to Point Three: If one’s personal life is flashy or unconventional, then that becomes the overwhelming focus. Ask poor Virat Kohli. A March 2015 story in the Hindustan Times came with this breathless headline: Virat Kohli, Anushka Sharma arrive hand-in-hand from Australia. He seemed like someone returning not so much from a World Cup semi-final loss as a blissed-out honeymoon.
An edited version of this piece can be found here. Copyright ©2015 The Hindu. This article may not be reproduced in its entirety without permission. A link to this URL, instead, would be appreciated.
Santosh Balakrishnan
July 27, 2015
Excellent topic.. read it in “The Hindu” earlier today, before you posted it here.. and it felt more apt reading it there… 🙂
To tell a story? Or draw eyeballs to that story in the first place? – I think predominantly tell a story (honest one at that), but also to draw eyeballs to that story.. mainly cos with so much around to read its the headline that will grab attention of a reader.. but as u mentioned the most critical aspect is how relevant that headline is to the story being told (its like the “Subject” of an email).. sadly this is being missed in most newspapers (I would say barring “The Hindu” mostly, after reading them for 2 decades now)..
But I guess most newspapers (aka tabloids) are going for such things (mostly after going e-paper mode) as they are in need to continuously publish anything and everything under the name of stories (Kohli news in HT one such case, as they had nothing else to tell there)… and they believe sensational (particularly when its about a famous personality) headlines are the way to go.. I don’t know if there is any revenue potential for every clicks to the e-page / column (may be you can enlighten us on that, how it works in your field after e-volution of print media).. also with every paper publishing the same news within few mins of each other, eye grabbing imaginative headlines seems to be their differentiator… 🙂
After all that rambling from me 🙂 this is what I would like to know… You personally feel a certain approach is defined by the organization as a whole (based on their target audience)? Or is it a very individual approach by each news reporter / editor driven by the segment they are covering? It looks like “The Hindu” falls under the former category(more professional and sedate/balanced journalism)..
LikeLiked by 1 person
MANK
July 27, 2015
Well interesting topic brangan. Sexy headlines are the flavor of the times and it is always disconcerting when many a highly respected newspapers fall for this. I had gone through many articles where the headlines and the subject matter has hardly any relation
LikeLiked by 1 person
Madhu
July 27, 2015
Kumudham and Anandha Vikatan were pioneers in this, to take one sentence from a celebrity’s interview and make it the headline and the illustrated cover news – which mostly when read in context would turn out to be anti-climactic.
LikeLiked by 1 person
aparna
July 27, 2015
Excellent write up. The Hindu is certainly the best newspaper around for non sensational reporting (actually for reporting, period). It sticks to the facts, unlike most other newspapers available here. You can however draw eyeballs without sensationalism, by being witty and I’ve seen a lot of that in the Hindu.
A related read :
http://www.thehindu.com/opinion/Readers-Editor/whats-in-a-headline/article4400901.ece
LikeLike
aparna
July 27, 2015
This ones hilarious :
http://moosecleans.ca/content/tiger-woods-plays-own-balls-nike-says
LikeLike
brangan
July 27, 2015
Feedback via email…
Really enjoy reading you. Echoed my feelings.
The Guardian has ‘gay’ stories every single day. While I am not homophobic and entirely sympathetic to the struggles of gay people, I too had the same reaction.(I’ve written for them occasionally n it pretty predictable which story will be published n which scuttled)
Thanks for yr eminently readable stories.
Lovely when one comes across a really good piece of writing
best
Just read your piece titled moot point in a headline. Yellow journalism has become a bane that is slowly driving readers away from newspaper reading. Hope your article is a step towards bringing some change and media resumes to tell a story instead of just sensationalizing it.
I just read your article ‘Moot point in a headline’ in the Bengaluru edition of The Hindu dated July 27 2015.
The article raises a very good point about how a news piece should be marketed. As you’ve rightly argued, in the age of declining newspaper readership, the primary task would be to get the reader’s attention and then proceed to make the theme of the article visible to the reader. But the drawback with an eyeball catching headline, I feel, is one might not always be able to takeaway the central idea of the article. The focus will be more so on the part of the story that details out the headline and the other parts could be neglected, as demonstrated in the article about Tom Daley in The Guardian.
I hope will you will write a follow up article on the same issue. I shall look forward to it. Thank you.
You have hit the nail on the head with your article. This absurd practice of having a totally irrelevant head line is quite prevalent today, in the print medium, the electronic medium and the digital medium .It is so ludicrous and frustrating. So much so that I have stopped all other newspapers except THE HINDU and stopped watching news on TV. I now subscribe to snippets of news through mobile apps, apart from reading well written articles on The Hindu and other magazines like Open.
LikeLiked by 1 person
savitha
July 27, 2015
dear baradwaj,
I never miss out your movie reviews. It makes good reading, for its clarity, literary style and its distinctive punch of humour. I guess you excel when it comes to talking about movies? Why saunter into other ‘serious issues’ (where there hundreds of wise heads to give their opinion) which definitely is not your cup of tea.
LikeLike
Vikram Sonni
July 27, 2015
Hi BR, very relevant article… imho, newspapers have gotten into aping what is going on with TV news…. constantly dramatic headlines, music, sensationalism, everyone hoping to get an indiscreet soundbyte to push their channel trps…. best of all… this is under the guise of ‘ the nation wants to know’…. 🙂
If a story has to catch attention… The paper might have to resort to sensationalised headlines.. With the hope that the reader will read the story in its entirety….
LikeLike
brangan
July 27, 2015
Santosh Balakrishnan: Actually, what made me write this was the fact that The Guardian did this. For a piece that’s not even about his coming out. I thought it really trivialised the 4000-odd words that followed.
About your question, it’s a bit of both. Like my headline for this was “Headline News.” (That was what I wrote in my draft.) But the person handling the page changed it to “Moot point in a headline.”
Every writer needs a strong editor.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Gyaani
July 27, 2015
Hi Rangan,
I love your blog and your writing. This is a very good piece as well and something which bothers me as well. Being a football fan, I have seen a lot of the british websites use these click baiting techniques.
Having said that, your article on this blog carries a different photo while the Hindu website and today’s paper carry, Virat and Anushka’s photo. Is the photo attachment in these articles out of your control? Does somebody get a say on that? That seems proper click baiting (or eye baiting).
I am a big admirer of your body of work Rangan, and the last thing I want to do is accuse you of hypocrisy, hence the questions (well intentioned, I assure you), and in fact, I do seriously believe that it was out of your hands. However, as the actual owner of the content, I do think you should have a say on it, and ensure that your editors stay away from such cheap gimmicks.
The blog is of course a relief, as always :).
Regards,
LikeLike
brangan
July 27, 2015
Gyaani: The blog is my space. It has the edit I prefer — for instance, there are some itals here that I wanted there. The print edition doesn’t have them. Sometimes, the print version chops up these pieces due to space constraints. Similarly, I have no control over the layout or pics that the print version uses.
Thank you for the kind words. For some reason, the phrase you used — “body of work” — is making me intensely happy now.
LikeLike
Iswarya
July 27, 2015
@Madhu:
Quite true. I’d say Kumudham even more than AV, at least in the last few years. One of their predictable dirty tricks is to turn a straightforward statement into a question, while the question is more likely to have been a bait thrown there by the interviewer. “Am I in love with X?” Or “Did I really abuse Y?” etc. while this might not have been a part of what the interviewee wanted to voluntarily comment on at all. And funny enough, the answer to these questions would be a plain Yes or No, sometimes even a vehement refusal!
Talking of which, I successfully resisted the urge to pick up the Kungumam this week (it would have been a completely freak buy anyway) after reading the headline for Mysskin’s interview in a poster for the weekly, saying something like “it’s my achievement not to have directed a Kamal movie.” Very intriguing headline for me of course, but I was sure I’d find the interview itself quite disappointing, knowing how these magazines go about picking their headlines.
LikeLiked by 2 people
Neena
July 27, 2015
But, this doesn’t seem like click-baiting…Like BR points out, this is old news and it is not terribly interesting for a gay guy to be saying he was attracted to guys. I’m sure people who follow sportsmen would already know that Daley was gay and wouldn’t find the headline very inviting.
I’m beginning to suspect newspapers like to hit a target of ‘gay stories’ or ‘environment stories’ or ‘feminist stories’ every week or something and this is something that adds up. Of course, that’s a completely wild guess and I have no evidence to back this up 😛
LikeLike
Anu Warrier
July 28, 2015
As an editor myself, this is something I’m constantly telling my sub-editors – please, please, think before you write something. Attracting reader attention is one thing – in today’s two-minute world, you need to have click-bait, but sensationalism is quite another. It appalls me that some of my youngling crowd think that the only way to grab eyeballs is to write what I would consider something that caters to the lowest common denominator; I’ve often been told that I need to ‘change with the times’. It is a measure of my years of experience that I’ve so far managed not to change so much, and that despite their affectionate leg-pulling about my being a social media dinosaur, they actually listen to me.
It is not just in print, however; have you heard the news on the telly? Respectable channels like CNN and WBZ will resort to sepulchral voices and very melodramatic utterances – one would think that the 11 p.m. news is filled with akshun, drrraamma, and emoshun… only the songs are missing! It’s distasteful.
p.s. Seconding the comment about a great respect for your writing, and your body of work. I do hope you can reign in your sub-editor when he/she gets too dramatic; your writing isn’t that way, the headlines should complement it. 🙂
LikeLiked by 2 people
Santosh Balakrishnan
July 28, 2015
“Every writer needs a strong editor”
for one, in this case itself the picture of Kohli / Anushka (its clear the editor believed Kohli attracts more readers in India as compared to Tom Daley) has basically no relevance to the majority of the story written by you.. so its very surprising that the editor chose this pic for a column that talks about the same eye-baiting technique through irrelevant title (in fact visual has a stronger attracting power than words).. it gives the reader a sense of hypocrisy (though may not be the case)..
another being the unfair situation the writer is put in (at the end of the day it is the writer’s name being shown in the column).. in this blog you had everything aligned, the content, pics (representing the content being used to illustrate your point of view) and IMO the title also.. since we read your blog space we are aware of your work in its entirety.. but for rest who don’t read your blog (or for writers with no blog space of their own), it might lead to a different perception in reader’s mind…
IMHO it should be collaborative effort (at the very least) particularly if the writer’s work / intention is well respected in the organization and readers mind.. there are columns that people read (me too) just seeing the writer’s name on it.. I feel that’s a big connect (bait 🙂 ) between the reader and the content read..
P.S But how I wish Kamal the writer has a strong editor… sorry for the digression.. 🙂
LikeLike
rothrocks
July 28, 2015
Very relevant article on a relevant issue with print/online journalism. Someone mentioned the possibility of mining for a gay angle in stories. Extending that to its logical conclusion, today newspapers/magazines/websites look for some sexual juice to liven up the story. On similar lines to the above story, I remember reading an online article about Annie Haslam, the singer of Renaissance who is now well into her 60s and fighting terrible odds to keep the band on the road. Whilst waxing eloquent about her resilience in the face of adversity for low commercial rewards, they also posted a photograph of her from the 70s (the band’s heyday) where she was wearing a dress that left a bit of cleavage exposed and captioned the photograph “Taking the plunge”. On the one hand I couldn’t help chuckle at the double entendre but such a caption kind of cheapens the entire story by shifting its focus to a triviality.
Re Anu Warrier’s point on editorial control, well what if the editor is aiming for eyeballs? I will not divulge details here but I have first hand experience of this. They look for catch words that will attract maximum search results and thereby hits and if that requires a headline that distorts the implication of the article, so be it. Hindu is just a glorious exception to the rule.
LikeLike
Rahini David
July 28, 2015
Every profession has people who bring the reputation of their own profession a notch down. But Journalism is on a league all its own in this respect.
I kept away from the Kumudham type books for a long, long time and when I did start reading them, I was shocked how different the title was from the content. There are of course plenty of examples, but the one I remember best is “Naan inum Play boy thaan – Manam Thirakirar Abaas”. What Abaas told (during the Padaiappa, Minnalea era) is “I am well past the college boy stage in life, but on-screen I am never given anything more than Playboy roles”. It was not even quote-mining, it was a plain lie.
LikeLiked by 1 person
brangan
July 28, 2015
via email
I just read your article ‘Moot point in a headline’ in today’s ‘The Hindu’ and found it very helpful.
I am currently a student at the Asian college of Journalism in Chennai. So far we have had the first three weeks of our classes and we are learning how to write news reports for different streams of journalism.
Especially in our Editing classes, Mr. S.Meenakshisundaram(who has also been a journalist at ‘The Hindu’) guided us very well about how to be careful while choosing the apt headline.He had highlighted how we should refrain from sensationalism in this process.
Your article helped me in gaining a deeper understanding of that point.By contrasting the cases of Tom Daley and Michael Sam you have efficiently highlighted the importance of context.
The examples given in this article will always serve as a useful reminder, while I am on my path to becoming a good journalist.
This is with reference to the article ‘Moot point in a headline’. Headline is always a head ache to many readers, as it causes many distractions on the subject. Also, nowadays, it is seen that headlines or titles of many books, articles and films are not given based on the story, which needs to be corrected. In any stories or news or article the readers try to refer first on the photos, pictures, graphs , cartoon or chronological events of it. Then only head lines are referred. As said, many people do not have the time or the patience to read long stories, and so the headline plays a huge part in what they take away from it. In this connection, I just recollected Ramayana book of Rajaji, In the concluding chapter He says as follows. “On one occasion, Gandhi and I were talking about a girl very dear to both of us. I said “How did she get all these ideas and phrases of love without having read any of present day love stories?”. Gandhi said in answer “But has she not read Ramayana/. Is Ramayana a love story too”. Thus viewing any subject and giving suitable headline to any story is done on one’s freedom and choice and in a way attract the readers.
LikeLiked by 1 person
brangan
July 28, 2015
Speaking of headlines… Clever or insensitive?
LikeLiked by 1 person
Madhu
July 28, 2015
All this reminds me of the ‘Go back Indian Media’ campaign by Nepal. That was one rude awakening, but it generated only defensiveness and didn’t end up actually awakening.
On another note, one of my colleagues when discussing about newspapers, told me “My dad insists on getting The Hindu. But, it is such a boring paper. It is like reading a MoM. I don’t want to the extent of reading about Deepika’s cleavage, but I do want a paper to be a little interesting. So, I ended up getting ~some other paper, I don’t remember the name~”. So, may be readers do want these ‘Kaalam aanaar Kalam’ and ‘Enakkum Srikanthukkum kalyaanam, manam thirakkiraar Sneha’ kind of headlines.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Prajith
July 28, 2015
Mr Brangan what is the English translation of that headline and which is the paper please
LikeLike
brangan
July 28, 2015
Prajith: The paper is Dina Malar – http://www.dinamalar.com/
The headline says: Kalam is no more — but with some wordplay on the like-sounding Kaalam (implying death).
LikeLike
rothrocks
July 28, 2015
Better be solemn than creative in obituary imo
LikeLike
Prajith
July 28, 2015
Oh, thanks Mr Brangan thanks
LikeLike
sudhirsrinivasan
July 28, 2015
Loved this story.
I thought Dinamalar’s title was clever. The symmetry of the title looks so enchanting.
LikeLike
Iswarya
July 28, 2015
That Kalam headline reminds me of the only smile-worthy moment in a Vijay movie I caught on TV some months ago. (I think it was Pokkiri, but not sure.) The police officer played by Napoleon (not sure again) takes a dig at a journalist for sensationalising the death of a lorry driver in an accident with the headline that goes like ‘Lorry damaal.. Driver fanaal!’
And I was immediately reminded of some eye-roll yellow paper headlines in Tamil that I’ve seen in passing. The funniest of them was “Labak… (in big fonts) Andhiravirku thappi oadiya thirudargalai police.. (in small fonts).” Very often such headlines begin with sound effects like “Dumeel,” “Suleer” etc. I really wonder whose taste they appeal to! 😀
LikeLiked by 1 person
Iswarya
July 28, 2015
On second thoughts though, I feel the headline is rather inappropriate not because it uses the solemn occasion of a much respected public figure’s death, but because it displays a certain streak of cleverness that the poor man himself could not really be accused of. Considering that our former President in the last few years as a ‘motivational public speaker’ was the most popular dispenser of bromides, I’d say the headline doesn’t do justice to the man.
(OK.. I understand that it is polite to say nothing but good of the dead, but I think the social media hype on this occasion is really disproportionate. Sorry.. But, had to vent this out!)
LikeLike
ThouShaltNot
July 28, 2015
For headline symmetry (despite the gruesome humor), the NY Post headline, “Headless body in Topless bar” (apparently, a tavern owner was shot and his body decapitated by a psycho 2 decades back) is rated the best in tabloid space.
A similar publication on the other side of the Atlantic blared this with reference to the 2 competing airlines, which I found funny – “Virgin Screws BA!”
LikeLike
praneshp
July 28, 2015
Iswarya: No offense, but learn to live with it. The world has changed for good, there’s going to be social media hype no matter who/what. No point living with our heads in the 90s cribbing about social media all the time.
LikeLike
sachita
July 29, 2015
Iswarya: Social media is people themselves, isnt it? So if all these people felt badly about his death and expressed it, what is wrong in that?
LikeLike
rothrocks
July 29, 2015
The problem with social media is the noise factor. People seem to feel guilty of not saying anything on such an occasion and so we have a cacophony of tributes instead of respectful silence. My point is unless the person in his own capacity or his work meant something to you, your tribute is kind of redundant. It’s ok, internet is free for all but I can understand the irritation quotient of it. My fb feed is full of tributes/snarky quips/caste deconstruction of APJ. I don’t have time to read most of them and if someone did make the effort to write an interesting, thoughtful tribute, it’s lost in the clutter.
LikeLiked by 3 people
Iswarya
July 29, 2015
Praneshp: Thanks, no offence taken. Happy to be an ice-age monster, since I’ve successfully kept out of FB, Twitter, etc. 😀
Anyway, I wasn’t cribbing exactly about the social media reactions, which I understand are, by nature, rather hyperbolic. But I was wondering about the uncritical worship of anything and everything connected with the late President, with no discrimination about when you’re offering worthy praise for the many real achievements of the man and when you’re simply being asinine. Which, of course, meant that I was being treated to choice quotations by the great scientist dropping into my WhatsApp inbox in the middle of the night. Nothing against the man himself, but does his death automatically make even some of his mind-numbingly inane statements suddenly sacred was what I wondered here about.
Sachita: I should say truer words etc. Consider them said. In fact what you say completely proves why I am so often a misanthrope.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Iswarya
July 29, 2015
And rothrocks: Wish I could up-vote your comment more than once. 🙂
LikeLike
brangan
July 30, 2015
I too am a dinosaur when it comes to social media. I basically got on to twitter because people said it’s great to network etc. — but so far I just post links to my writings and dash away. I know I’m probably missing out a lot, but there are two things about social media that disturb me (from what I can see; regular users may know better):
(1) The casualness with which things are discussed. The instant verdicts. The refusal to engage with things/topics. The tendency to slot people/things — give the dog a bad name and hang him. The tendency to say whatever’s on top of the mind, the way we’d gossip with close people.
It’s not that I don’t like gossip — but not in the electronic ether. The decorporealisation of an experience as cathartic as gossip/venting is such a sad thing 🙂
(2) The groupthink. It seems so easy to get swayed by the bullies, by whoever’s shouting the loudest. A friend of mine said he longer discusses his idols because he’s in the minority and people gang up and tease him, etc., and it becomes pointless. I’d be scared to discuss films there. I’d rather do this on the blog, where I can take my time over responses — even if it is only a ten minutes.
Of course, I agree twitter is invaluable when it comes to disseminating information. I’m only talking about views.
Oh, and I also hv an allrgy 2 d spllings & abbrvs used 2 fit thots in2 140 chars 😉
LikeLiked by 2 people
Rahini David
July 30, 2015
BR: The groupthink extends to blogs as well. If a comment gets 5 upvotes, then soon it garners about 50 upvotes and suddenly you wonder if people are even reading what is written in its entirety.
I remember asking questions that are soon adjudged to be rhetorical questions and soon everybody is baying for my blood. Somehow I just stopped commenting in other blogs and concentrated my attention to just this blog alone. Somehow this is a quieter place (by usual standards) where people actually read the comments, think about them and then reply. Touchwood.
LikeLike
praneshp
July 30, 2015
@brangan: I welcome you to the comments section of Youtube videos. You cannot watch a video of actor X without all non-X fans ganging up on the poster in the comments.
About slotting, from what I’ve learned in my (admittedly short) experience, people are always like that. There are 60 year old idiots in my family who deduce from one bad shot that a player has fixed the match. 50% of the people are of below-average intelligence, by definition. Twitter/social_network_of_the_day just gives them a platform to force their opinions on us.
@Iswarya: I believe that 99% of humans deserve nothing but good things said about them at their death, so I’m okay with the (sometimes hyperbolic) talk about Kalam. Not sure how you felt at the time Bal Thackeray died. He made people hate each other even when he died 🙂
I like UK laws. When someone causes damage (eg. riots) by the things they say on twitter, they are prosecuted.
LikeLike
Santosh Balakrishnan
July 30, 2015
I feel the group-think is omnipresent (may be social media accentuates it due its far reaching capacity).. experienced this first hand during college days when we stayed in hostel.. any topic for discussion would meander towards ridicule the moment a side gets majority.. thot age was a factor that time, but sadly nope.. then started to realize may be its basic human tendency to feel bullish when there is masss.. 🙂
the worrying aspect of social media (on top of the compulsive tendency to say what’s on ones mind) is the caustic nature of expressing one’s opinion.. its a behaviour am seeing even in my nephews and nieces (to them its default mode of speech/type) which is disappointing…
P.S Comments section in this blog space is so balanced (some might say “bland” 🙂 ) that its very surprising (pleasantly)
LikeLiked by 4 people
Iswarya
July 30, 2015
Ah, well.. I must admit that at least part of my outrage and disgust at groupthink is being subconsciously fuelled by the fact I am now re-reading my Ayn Rand after years together. (One of my very few guilty pleasures.) Her take on the ‘wisdom of the crowd’ seems to growing eerily relevant with the advent of social media.
LikeLike
Neena
July 30, 2015
Iswarya: I was so hoping for someone to say that – suddenly, people seem to be saying that Kalam shud hv been Indian dictator-for-life and using his random smiling pics to bash everyone starting from Nehru, Prathiba Patil to Pranab Mukherjee. It is like one of those Shankar film endings where people say they want A R Rahman or Ratan Tata to become presidents/prime ministers for life!
Kalam probably was a brilliant engineer and his achievement in his professional sphere is probably amazing. But, a post juxtaposing Kalam’s pic with kids and Nehru’s with Edwina, going “Whose birthday should be children’s day?”!! Forget that children are scrtaching their head wondering why ‘their day’ is when some old man is supposed to be inspiring them.
Now I’ve done my venting 🙂 Have refrained from doing this in social media for fear…you know of general social media fanaticism…
LikeLiked by 2 people
ThouShaltNot
July 30, 2015
The reason why Kalam’s death has brought such a spontaneous outpouring of affection for the departed from fellowmen is not because he was a brilliant scientist, not because he was an exemplary technocrat, not because he was a powerful leader, but because he was a humanitarian who put his love of youth and country above all, rarely yielding to cynicism. It is rare in this age to find someone in his position not covet the trappings of power and it is rarer still to find someone who does the goodly and gracious deeds sans fanfare.
LikeLike
Madhu
July 30, 2015
You know this roti story? How a boy’s mom burnt rotis that day but the father said he loved them burnt and had it and later told the boy that a day’s hardwork and love is more important, not roti…or some such crap? Well, when I joined FB about 4 years back it did the rounds as a normal story. Then, it became an incident from Chetan Bhagat’s life (don’t ask me why). And now, it has become a ‘direct’ quote from Abdul Kalam. It’s now doing it’s round as his life incident and quoted by him. If you ignore the frothing-at-the-mouth-fanboys, social media is one funny place.
LikeLike
Iswarya
July 30, 2015
Neena: Whoa.. That sounds creepy! So glad I escaped those levels of fanaticism. The two things that drove me crazy were the less-than-quotable quotes and random misinformation parading in the garb of national pride.
For the quotes, sample the following:
(No kidding!)
One Best Book Is Equal To Hundred Good Friends But One Good Friend Is Equal To A Library. (Does that mean something? Anything?)
“Madras Christian College is 170 years old, which means that, the College has gone around the sun 170 times.” (Agreed that didn’t come to me as a part of the obit forwards, but it stays in my mind for some reason as the quintessential Kalam quote.)
As for the misinformation, there was a forward claiming that the Nobel winning scientists who worked on discovering the God particle (Higgs-Boson) in the Large Hadron collider followed Kalam’s advice and installed a Shiva idol in the reactor, lest the world be destroyed while recreating the Big Bang.
A picture of the White House with the flag at half mast, supposedly in honour of Dr. Kalam and that this honour was the first such occasion in world history. Unfortunately, a quick Google search revealed that the picture was taken over 10 days ago when the White House condoled the Chattanooga victims.
Gob-smacked!!
LikeLike
Ram Murali
July 30, 2015
@brangan – Very nice comment. You wrote, “…The tendency to say whatever’s on top of the mind…” You also wrote about the “decorporealisation” of an experience. The other way that I look at it is that the comfort of relative anonymity makes people behave in funny ways. The bar that some of the abusers set for tolerance of other people’s opinions is very low and the rope that they give themselves is extra long and extra strong. I am even fine with seeing binary opinions (though I am sure directors/producers have nightmares of the term “Mokka Padam” since it’s two words that together instantly trash a movie making a potential viewer have second thoughts on buying a ticket) on the internet. But what bothers me more is the scant respect that people have for others’, instantly taking personal potshots when things heat up. In an ideal world, commenters would “talk” to strangers (virtually) the way they would if it were not virtual. But then again, this is the world we live in. I just comfort myself saying that there are also people that use social media for noble causes – case in point, a commenter alerting actor Vishal on the unfortunate current state of Paravai Muniamma and Vishal agreeing to partially fund Muniamma’s medical expenses.
LikeLike
Rahini David
July 31, 2015
Iswarya: “So glad I escaped those levels of fanaticism.”
Lucky you. This is where I be a dear and spare the rest of the fanaticism. Suffice to say this is a mild one. Some of them are such wallbangers. 🙂
But regarding hte phony quotes, who are these people who begin this misattribution? The people who forward them are doing because of ignorance. But the person who originally browsed for random inspirational quotes and replaced the authors name with Kalam’s name, do they think they are doing him a favour or what.
Yogi Berra has been quoted as having said, ‘I never said most of the things I said”. Maybe that is true. Then again, maybe it is true but he did not say it.
Ram Murali: “In an ideal world, commenters would talk to strangers (virtually) the way they would if it were not virtual.”
Yeah. I really liked this post on that topic. https://indianhomemaker.wordpress.com/2014/08/25/because-we-can-still-be-honest-without-saying-gosh-woman-what-is-wrong-with-you/
Madan: “Better be solemn than creative in obituary imo”
A nice article on that. http://seemagoswami.blogspot.fr/2013/12/dearly-departed.html
LikeLiked by 1 person
Neena
July 31, 2015
ThouShaltNot: a humanitarian with an unwavering support for nuclear armament? A humanitarian who evaded acting on almost all of the death row mercy petitions submitted during his term as president? He is of course entitled to do that and can be respected for those political beliefs. But there’s nothing in his career that makes him a humanitarian. That seems to be a brilliant marketing campaign or as we have been discussing, a media/social media Frankenstein
Iswarya: that MCC quote is actually hilarious – like one of those PT teacher jokes!
LikeLike
Madan
July 31, 2015
Rahini: Thanks. That article is spot on. Yup, Obama becoming a selfie pulla at Mandela’s farewell was the pits. How difficult is just to sincerely express one’s condolences and move on with dignity.
LikeLike
ThouShaltNot
July 31, 2015
@Neena: I did not call Kalam a pacifist (or peacenik). Neither did I mean to give the impression that he is a humanitarian in the Mother Teresa mold. There are many shades of the word “humanitarian”; not just the one you have in mind. Altruist, benefactor, patron, do-gooder, someone who works to alleviate the lot of people (particularly the less privileged) etc. Of that, there is ample testimony.
LikeLike
Srinivas R
July 31, 2015
@Neena – From what I know, Abdul Kalam was opposed to death penalty as he saw a trend where most of the death sentence convicts were of the socially/economically disadvantaged class and that didn’t seem right.The bigger reason why he is called “humanitarian” is that he seems to have touched a lot of normal folks life without the trappings of his power.
About phony quotes and misinformation, everyone is searching for their 2 min of FB fame and I guess APJ is the latest tool for the same.
LikeLike