The age of gossip is over; it’s the time of supplementing spicy bits of news with hard-hitting tangible proof. The price of an unscrupulous lifestyle can be high; for that matter the stakes can be high for the scrupulous, too. For where technology overrides common sense, and manipulative techniques reign supreme, even Angels live in dread of being dragged into a controversy. And a controversy which is not whispered in the shadows, but one that is most probably aired on National television.
“Masala News” is a heady concoction and it has invoked hideous monsters like sting operations, gossip columns, thus pushing sex and sensation to the headlines. So, be it the escapades of a romping swami, a gay professor, a top golfer, controversies surrounding a nuptial vow or the nationality of one’s spouse, or even a profitable political deal gone wrong – everything is a scandal demanding public attention.
Gossip, usually has an innocent, almost childlike appeal and conjures up images of women giggling over their knitting, or men sharing juicy news while indulging in even juicier pan at the corner pan shop. What we are talking about now is malicious and destructive information that can ruin reputation and even take lives. We have now graduated from the “harmless” gossip to outrageous voyeurism, complemented with pictures, videos, audios and large dollops of imagination. I say imagination because the authenticity of most of the information is always questionable and mere speculation ends up becoming top news. Use of technology instead of lending validity to the news, in fact increases its dubiousness because of greater scope of falsification through editing, dubbing, superimposition, and what not.
Critics supporting the cause of technology-based rendition of news can say that the use of technology has increased the instances of vice and unscrupulous behavior being caught on camera or on tape, making it almost fool-proof to nail and punish offenders. So far so good; but what about the innocent (or even not so innocent, yet not the “big bad wolf “kinds) who are being made targets for blackmail, threats, and unwarranted attention, through some juicy bit of private detail duly captured (or even fabricated to dire proportions) using technology.
It’s a time when even the most common of us live in dread of old ghosts of the pasts or new conjured up spirits. The worst part of today’s world is that while the simpletons and the honest folk are becoming more conscious and concerned about their reputation and their social actions, the unscrupulous are continuing to devise ways and means to flourish and promote their crooked schemes. Where retribution didn’t cause fear of crime, it seems as if the fear of being caught has added greater thrill to the act of committing a crime. And to complete this vicious circle is the very act of voyeurism and misuse of technology. To top it all is the loss of credulity of the media – it’s becoming difficult to discern fact from fiction and we have a modern version of the little shepherd boy who screamed “Wolf, Wolf” for fun, and risked his life when people stopped responding to his false cries for help.
We are living in difficult times and it seems the world is becoming even more fear-centric with all of us peering into each other’s glass-houses, while afraid that our own glass walls may come shattering down upon us any day!
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snigdha Says:
April 28th, 2010 at 9:14 AMGreat to read your post after such a long time. I came here expecting something else though. I thought you would probably write about parenthood but I was pleasanly surprised when I read what you have written. May be dealing with a small baby 24/7 leaves you with a lot of wisdom and food for thought but you still don’t feel like writing about the same thing which you are already dealing with everyday. Atleast that what has been happening to me. I just don’t feel like writing about my experience becuase I don’t have any mental space to write about something which keep me surrounded every moment. Anyway, I should be writing about your post rather than talk about myself ;-P
I saw LSD, your post and the film has an uncanny similarity. I agree with you on the point that the voyerism has reached a saturation point and media with all its Grapevine & stings has lost its charm, credibility as well as saleability therefore many a times news or gossip is created which is far from the truth.
Ashish Says:
June 3rd, 2010 at 7:55 AMVery well said. We have movrd from the information age into the mis-information age, where there are so many smokescreens laid around that it gets impossible to know the truth. And if the truth is hidden, how does one make an informed judgement? The only judgement you’ll end up making is a biased one, no matter how hard you try.