Sharing is Caring

A long time back I watched a movie wherein the male protagonist advised his dejected female counterpart to find a quite place and scream out her frustration, and she did. In the subsequent narrative, the Scream and Shout therapy seemed to work for her, at least to vent out her anger. The same therapy is being increasingly practiced in another world, though the space is anything but quite; and it seems to not just vent but also empowers. Yes, I am talking about the buzzing world of Social media where people are increasingly turning up to talk about their encounters with the corrupt and the miscreants. Finally, there‘s a lot more to facebook newsfeed than ‘see how hep my life is’ or witty one liners. From self promotion to Self empowerment, status messages and tweets have come a long way. Hitherto helpless,the common people seem to have found a new source of energy in the social media that amplifies their voice to lend it a reach and impact. How this power galvanized people in Arab Spring is well recorded for future history books. While that was the case of people coming together for a common cause with an equally strong external political support, the recent evolution is all about the collective strength of people, driven purely by empathy and shared sense of agony to help the cause of one person. Social media is perhaps one of the last frontiers where people are ready to take up the cudgels for someone absolutely stranger, if the cause resonates with them. Buoyed by this new found strength, the common man is no more quietly succumbing to the blows of high and mighty. I have witnessed day to day frustrations of a common man, like corruption, police high handedness, deceit and many such devious encounters, increasingly finding space and solidarity in the virtual world. This phenomena of dragging the unruly elements from the dark and fortified corners of our society to an open world of social media has the potential to contain their promiscuity. It might not bring a revolutionary change into our lives in near future, it will definitely sensitize the future generations to the need to behave better. I hope that the more discernible threat of instant defamation in social media will work better than the fear of an amorphous supreme power and certainly more than the easy-to-buy law enforcers.