Till when will you remain silent?

You get ignored, your arguments not valued,
They say you don’t have much skin in the game
Oh, Kiddo!, You are just an amateur, You have just begun.
They think they are the stalwarts,
They have seen it all and they know it all

Only if their thoughts weren’t so shallow, their values so hollow,
let’s be real — who is the real novice and who the wise, after all!
Your ideas get dismissed no matter how fresh, offbeat or creative,
no doubt they use the same old lens, the same old narrative!

Till when will you remain silent?

Your work gets taken away, tossed and turned, twisted and churned
presented to some old, some new, some fools and some ‘Who are you?’

Some get applauded, some get acclaim, some make me realise what I earned
But some remain as beautiful packs and some give me those Monday blues

Till when will you remain silent?

You get those snarly eye-rolls if you ask too many questions or considered ignorant if you ask too less! When do you stop getting judged?
You get manipulated ever so often you don’t even realise when it started and where it ends, everything is hazy and confusing. Why do I care so much?

Till when will you remain silent?

You struggle to join the dots; you run from pillar to post
You get the back story and make sense of those annoying jargons
Why you’d ask? Because let’s be honest — no one likes easy, no one likes plain
All the more if it’s run by all Jacks and critiqued by a Jane!

Till when will you remain silent?

You still wake up, gather all your might, get your mind right and go through the grind. Day in and day out, months pass by and years follow suit
Year after year- You complain a little, learn a little and grow your kind.

You realise the system is broken and ruthless
You criticise for the better, but you get told ‘Everything’s fine’
You wonder what is ‘truth’ and what ‘lies’ anymore. When they defy logic, miss the obvious, care for none and not a dime.

Not anymore and not for long

Don’t remain silent

Don’t lose that hope and definitely not that intent
The world has just begun and it’s only 2000 years old and we have a billion more to go
Kindle that burning rage and collect all those powerful thoughts — the war has just begun, and there are a million battles to be fought!

The pen is mightier than a sword
Fight with a pen and slay with your word
Just,
Speak up, Speak right and Speak now

Someone at your office has this unusual approach to do things and is your first reaction is that it won’t work? Or consider this – you are on a trip and, everyone else is enjoying, but nothing appeases you – the stay, the itinerary, the rented car or the food.

And a lot of other times it’s not even verbal. For example, you find this close friend who has a newfound hobby in videography – they released their first YouTube video after a lot of research, effort and dedication behind the scenes. You don’t see all that. What you see is the final product – a 5-minute video. And your first reaction is ‘that content is so amateur’ or ‘I could have done that so much better’.

And if I have the liberty to extend this cynical behaviour to a further extent then consider this scenario. Someone gives you excellent feedback for a training that you delivered, and instead of feeling content, you start self-doubting yourself if you truly deserved it. So, in short, you spare no one and not even yourself while criticising.

Let’s understand this behaviour a little more.

Why does this happen?

1) The default lens with which we operate for others is different from the lens we use for ourselves

Let me explain using an example
You visit someone’s place, and it’s a tad bit untidy. You’d be quick to make a judgement of how they live in a complete mess. In reality, it’s just a little unorganised or dusty. However, we are quick to perceive and judge the host in a different light.

What we most often do not acknowledge, is the fact, that they might have had a rough day at work or perhaps they are dealing with some personal issues or maybe they don’t prioritise cleaning over their hobby. We don’t know that, but we judge them.

And the irony is, we might not have been any better, given their situation. Being critical of others’ habits is easier than introspecting our habit of judging others and almost always with different parameters than the criteria we use for ourselves

2) Wearing the ‘black hat’ is our default mode

In one of the training sessions that I attended, we were taught about the six thinking hats for decision-making. Each hat has a different colour, and each colour represent a different characteristic. One of them is a black hat which means you need to critically evaluate an option before you make a decision.

Now, if that’s the default mode that you operate in, you are going to be critical of every new idea and person. And you will always find the glass half empty. It is easier to criticise than to appreciate because we have a confirmation bias – the tendency to interpret new evidence as confirmation of one’s existing beliefs or theories. If you have a preconceived notion about someone, by criticising your strengthen those beliefs further.

3) People are trying hard to look smart

In this digital age, where we have plenty of information or misinformation, there is a view and counterview for anything and everything.

For instance, at a fundamental level, we would all agree that we should fight corruption, reduce pollution levels, enforce stricter laws against rape or save our planet. However, a lot of what is happening around the globe tells us otherwise.

The recent protests by Greta Thunberg – she received overwhelming support on one hand, and also had to face widespread criticism on the other. This accurately portrays our mindset and behaviour – of how we are divided in terms of our opinions and views, on rather black and white topics

‘For every one person saying it’s possible, there are ten others (if not more) who say it isn’t.’

‘NO’ is a powerful word. It immediately grabs attention, puts the other person in a defensive position. And irrespective of the outcome, the rationale or righteousness, the critic now assumes more consideration than the other person. Simply put, it is an easier way to get attention or appear insightful when the reality could be completely different.

Let’s be a bit more appreciative of people around us and especially those who put a conscious effort into creating or building something. Sometimes they succeed and sometimes they fail. They will have their own learning curve – let them find that on their own. They will be kind and considerate when you try something new. And if you could really do much better than them, ask yourself – why aren’t you doing it?

Remember, everyone has ideas, only a few execute and fewer see the goal post. So, be more considerate and less judgemental

I am no expert to answer all of those questions but I would like to share my perspective, especially with this plethora of content being generated daily.

So if I have broadly categorised content into two buckets – 1) Entertainment 2) Informational – Even in this category, there are broadly two subcategories – ‘topicalish’ and ‘know-how’ ones. This article dives into this specific category of content which presents a problem and offers a solution sometimes.

The solution is not common or unique to the creator. As a consumer we know that too and might have heard it in some format previously, but what differentiates a creator and consumer is the fact that the former makes a conscious effort to organise their thoughts and observations into a beautiful storyline, rewrites it a million times, proofreads it, edits it, formats it and then publishes it.

So let’s appreciate the fact that content creation isn’t easy. It requires a lot of dedication to let the creative juice flowing in exploring an everyday topic and make it interesting to sell it to the audiences.

However, does that mean the creator knows the solution and has this all-encompassing wisdom to solve all your problems?

Nah! They are just keen to share something that has worked for them, and they believe it might help others. And some of them are sometimes just recycling their old content to keep their numbers up, keep the eyeballs glued to their content and make some income.

As a consumer, it is essential to understand these subtleties to consume responsibly and not believe everything that is being told or rather sold to us.

I consume a lot more content than I create and so I can reasonably distinguish an honest write-up from the mass click-bait production that adds no value to the consumer. They are either repetitive or superlative or overly enthusiastic with seemingly fake energy.

Don’t get me wrong that all content creators are the same, there are quite a few whom I admire, and they inspire me to show up every single day. They are original and have a powerful message to deliver, but not all of them and not always.

And it would be wrong to assume that people who create content would always have the right answer. They might have this one popular blog or vlog or post or story, but that doesn’t mean the rest shall always follow suit. Some are going to be worth your time and some not so much.

In essence, as a consumer of a lot of content and also someone who creates content, here are a few suggestions that I think as a consumer we all should do to uplift the entire cycle of content generation and consumption.

As a consumer, what you should do?

• Like, share and subscribe responsibly. A lot of it is just clutter or ramble. But if you do watch this garbage and share it, that’s more of what we shall get. Understand the difference between good content and great content. And I don’t need to define bad content – that’s easy to understand. But good content is something that has a few good points, is clear and the effort put in by the creator visible. Great content is where you can connect with the creator, understand the sentiment behind the content and resonate with their thoughts. Appreciate when you see a great content – for a vast majority, that’s their source of livelihood and those rare masterpieces are not generated every day. So be a connoisseur of great content. You’ll get more of what you like – it’s the law of nature.
• Be respectful – So coming to the bad content (and there is plenty of that), be respectful when you don’t like something. It’s okay to disagree or write a comment that explains your resentment but be polite and respectful to the creator – It is easy to comment, difficult to create
• Judge the article by the use of its messaging and not by the clickbait headline that made you click in the first place.
• Ever heard of content recycling. Yes, that’s true – Sometimes content creators recycle their content in different packaging, be smart to be able to distinguish that so you don’t prey victim to their strategies.
• And lastly, cut them some slack and don’t believe in everything that someone says because you liked this one article/video/post that they had created. They have their share of ups-and-downs, and probably at times some of their content is going to be shallow and wouldn’t cut the mark.

Okay, let’s start with the first 2 weeks. So they say it is difficult (like it’s a drug) to abstain from something you were hooked onto for so long. Now I shall admit that while I wasn’t posting something every day and didn’t have tons of stories daily. I was an avid user scrolling through pages after pages, following some of my favorite celeb stories and browsing through my favorite hash tags on food and fitness. I thought Instagram is just filled with these two. But it’s just what you follow that you would see more of, so if you are a cat person or a dog person, well Instagram is full of these for you.

Anyway, unlike others maybe I didn’t have much difficulty transitioning except for mornings when there aren’t any notifications to see or those breaks in between meetings when you pick your phone and realize you got no gram to surf. So you keep it back or in my case you switch to twitter (more on that later). And every time I went to a beautiful place or explored something extraordinary I clicked a picture and then I didn’t know what to do with it without sharing it with the world. But a promise is a promise and nothing bigger than the goal you have set for yourself. So just reminisced the picture over a few weeks or max share it on my WhatsApp family group.

Ok, now that’s done, what now? Or rather what’s the alternative?

Now it’s just a routine. You know the drill. Every time there is an urge, just find another source of entertainment. So for me I switched to Twitter, Medium and YouTube and recently Reddit(more on this a little later) but you will always find alternatives that would attract or distract you depending on what you are aiming to do with all the time off the social media. And you may say that Youtube and twitter are no less social media apps so that isn’t really going off the social media entirely, however my aim was to be more productive so even if I am on social media I made it a point I was using it for something informative – I follow Twitter and Youtube to understand Indian politics and to some extent US politics from the non-conventional sources as I don’t trust news channels these days. Neither do I trust social media; but, you can be smart enough to differentiate between facts and views more on this in another topic. So concluding there I was, able to find more time on news and politics—my topics of interest.

And this time also allowed me to research a lot on this topic–coming off social media and I started finding people who have done similar experiment in the past and what they learnt about it. So I want to share all of those findings with you.

Now I saw this video on ‘Quit social media’ by Dr. Cal Newport and he mentions that the most common argument that he has heard is people who have created their social identities based on these new age technology and to dismiss them altogether is like being in a state of denial, to which his counter argument is simple–in the 21^st century what the market values is the ability to produce things that are rare and valuable.

So what’s easy to replicate and doesn’t create a lot of value will not be something that would lead you to success.

– Dr Cal Newport

And social media to a large extent is just like that. Even a 6-year-old can create content today. So unless you are producing content based on research, conversations with experts and market leaders, experience and a slowly roasted recipe of persistence, incremental knowledge over the years and communicating with finesse; you aren’t really adding much value to your social media eco-system. Look at the one’s who are at the top in their respective fields they would have a career even if you take away the social media from them. For instance, MKBHD(Google or YouTube him if you don’t already know who he is) who reviews smartphones has gathered immense knowledge on the evolution of smartphones and has given extensive benefit through his reviews and feedback to a million users. So if tomorrow YouTube is no longer the medium he would use something else, but that’s all it is–a medium. You can’t take away his knowledge and research on mobile phones, his communication and video making skills from him.

Now if you are merely replicating someone without having the skills/knowledge or just produce 15 second videos, sorry you might gain instant fame for one video but you’d be down to nothing the very next day, and that is what I am against–the mere ton loads of content of absolute bad quality and have a life lesser than that of a fly. And that’s when I realized if I will post Insta stories that would attract a 100+ views and Insta posts that might attract another 100+ likes but what does that really mean–does it mean I am producing some content? Not really. I am no celeb who needs to maintain a certain social identity and mind you, I am no social media star who needs more traffic to their content. So what does that mean–I am only there for instant gratification or what we call as validation from someone else that this is right and this is beautiful. When you do these things just to create those beautiful stories without any additional value, without utilising that traffic effectively to promote something to gain something, you are effectively like the next door Aunty who likes to show-off their new jewellery, new car or new travel. Period. And if that is what you want that’s absolutely fine too. Just being aware helps at times and I believe not everyone is conscious and so they post at times, get their ego boost, go off for a few months, get frustrated -don’t really know what they want out of it or why are they even doing it.

And that brings me to the next point–Are those posts even remotely like your real life? There are again multiple references to this in our movies, soap operas and even in real life. Like friends who would go through a shitty relationship but post pictures of #relationshipgoals or going through a routine boring Sunday but just posting a few pics from some other day to show the fun day you have had. Or editing a picture to make it look like it’s from another planet when in reality it wasn’t worth the effort. Really, I wish we could have some filters in our life like in Instagram to filter out the nuisance from what makes sense.

No one posts about the struggles or the miseries, they all post of the beautiful vacation trips, their beautiful lives and their perfect spouse.

Sorry to break your bubble but I feel sorry for some of them who paint this picture that their life is just perfect or much better than others when in reality it is just shallow because you only lived on social media. Switch it off and then see if your life is still that beautiful, if it is well it’s great, enjoy those moments, cherish them and share a moment or two as you feel appropriate. But don’t ruin that moment especially when the friend whose picture you just posted is trying to have a conversation while you dig your face into that social media app and act busy to see what people are reacting on that picture. You care less of that friend sitting right in front of you but more of your social perception that you have just created. And that is what I am against. I am not against the social media apps, please don’t think otherwise, I believe they are a wonderful medium to express ourselves but we need to use them wisely and not be enslaved by them.

When you realize what you were doing was to create this reality which is far distinct from who you are or what you believe in you’d feel cheated and by none other than cheated by yourself. And I think that’s an existential crisis–and if you don’t believe me watch this excellent documentary on Netflix called ‘American Meme’ wherein they show how the big 4 names of the social media industry – Paris Hilton, Josh Ostrovsky, Brittany Furlan, and Kirill Bichutsky, hustle to create empires online. Kirill Bichutsky goes by the name of slut whisperer and if you don’t know him, just do a quick google search and you shall know he is most notorious for his “Girls Gone Wild” style stunts in which he pours champagne on women at nightclubs–ridiculous isn’t it?

And I know I have escalated in my write up from the girl next door to the celebs, I understand that but we are all still sailing the same boat and the point I was trying to make is that this guy is famous and makes money for pouring champagne on girls’ booty–well if this isn’t rock bottom I am not sure what is. I mean he himself doesn’t like it, he says he needs to be drunk to do it and he thrives only because of the demand there is which is even insane. The person who created his empire off the stuff he doesn’t believe in–well that’s what I call as existential crises when you contradict what you stand for, your core values and what makes you, YOU!

So, it is not really about questioning the medium but just the way we use it and if we really think through all of this or just follow the herd.