Thank you dear subscribers, we are overwhelmed with your response.
Your Turn is a unique section from ThePrint featuring points of view from its subscribers. If you are a subscriber, have a point of view, please send it to us. If not, do subscribe here: https://theprint.in/subscribe/
Every time something truly horrible happens, we as a society are forced to ask ourselves some hard questions about our values and priorities. Instagram influencers — also part of society allegedly — asked themselves the question: “how can I make this about me?” Taking a break from hawking whatever questionable merch they received for free from this week’s sponsor d2c brand, or practising for the newest viral hook-step trend, or making a cheap rip-off reel from a white influencer anyone in this country has yet to encounter, instagrammers last month made protest art about a war and a rape-murder inter alia. “I believe in the power of poetry to bring about healing” said this poetry influencer (coincidence?) before performing a poem on the writing prompt du jour, the most recent tragedy.
Stand-up comedians, singers, dancers — everyone pitched in with their timely content. The rest of us who dropped out of performance arts classes in the board exams year for the clearly-low-RoI pursuit of academics started to look like we don’t care – or worse – don’t know about the current thing! Thankfully, Instagram knows that (less than) 20% of us on their platform have 80% of all the talent (the classic 80-20 rule), but all 100% of us can passively “share” or “repost” content to tell our followers we co-sign on the message of that post. After all, we are all influencers to somebody!
Now, some more mindful users of Instagram wondered if posting political or protest content is even proper instagram etiquette. Didn’t we all quit Twitter for Threads to “protect our peace” from exactly this kind of negativity? But only a handful of too-woke users commented on the cognitive dissonance from seeing stories about a gruesome rape between stories from a Japan vacation. Clips of protesters being water-cannoned between pictures of you at the new pop-up restaurant in town. And so on. Clearly, these people are too perceptive for their own good. If “overthinking” was an olympic sport, etc., amirite?
Anyway the stories vanish after a day and the lifespan of even the most viral reel is like a week. So it’s not ruining anyone’s timeline significantly. What’s important is that we participated in giving the protesters and victims what they really need at the moment: better online reach.
These pieces are being published as they have been received – they have not been edited/fact-checked by ThePrint