The Beauty of Stupidity

Last night, like most other nights, the chemicals in my brain started acting up again. I lay on the bed, trying to sleep - which was obviously playing a sophisticated version of hide and seek with me. Hence, last night, like most other nights, I went back to my virtual playground, known to 99.79% of the world as Twitter. And there you were - most of my virtually real friends, going about their activities. I sent out a whimper - hey guys, please say something to cheer me up! And there you were - saying a thousand little things to carve an ':)' on my avatar. From blue unicorns to unread books, from baskets of smiles to non-boring people and existent Sundays, the responses were varied and many. And, they worked.

That sounds pretty straightforward, does it not? Well, why I would still want to waste online space over such Twitter moments is simply because I have never given a thought to this fact: there is a beauty to stupidity, a power like no other. Let me point out that that this is in no way intended to demean the cognitive capabilities of my Twitter friends. The reason why I say so is this: none of the tweets intended to cheer me up were trying to sermonise in any way. All that my virtually real friends were trying to do is this: spin their own little magic tricks to make me smile, to make me forget that there were errant chemicals in my brain, or in much simpler words, to make me happy.

And of course, it is not the first time this has happened. And this is obviously not the first blogpost that is trying to talk about the bonds that are formed over social networks. But, it is more about the nature of those bonds. It's like one of those movies with copious amounts of slapstick humour, or an orange lolly, or a baby with its toothless and chocolate-smeared-on-the-cheeks grin. It need not have a meaning to it - but it makes you happy, does it not? It may not make you ponder over the greater truth that is life but it gives you a reason to live, does it not?

Those of you from Twitter who know me (in real or virtual life) and are reading this, surely know I am referring to your handles in this post. Which is why, I am not naming you here. Pardon my use of the word 'stupidity' again, but all I can say is: thank you friends, for the good words last night, like most other nights.

Close Your Eyes

Before I officially start this post, let me tell you that I need a small applause - because I am resuming blogging after seven months! And those of you who have visited my Wordpress blog earlier, will see that all the content from there has been moved to this blog. Again, technically this was my first blog but hey, let the prodigal return, right? So here goes (well)

Humour has many forms - online as well as offline - and the most common of them being <insert a very high falutin word>. (come on, you really didn't expect me to be an analyst now?) But yes, the strangest, or as some would say, darkest thing about humour is its ability to thrive in the gloomiest of situations. The jokes floating around on Twitter at any given point of time are an example of that. There again, the ability of a nondescript entity to establish its presence in a very hilarious fashion. Take the example of the blogpost that became a rage on social media yesterday - Open Letter to a Delhi Boy. Otherwise a post composed in rather appalling English, it went viral through Twitter, and a majority of the people talking about it were not even aware that its author actually has a Twitter account - @Brokenmorning. From barely a hundred, her follower count stands at 400+ at the moment - all in a day. And it was beautifully summed up by the person in question, thus, in this tweet. She had no clue what a trending topic meant! In other words, she was unaware of her 24 hours of fame (positive or negative).

It could have been a coincidence that yesterday itself I was watching a certain Charlie Chaplin movie called A King in New York. One of his lesser known films but a brilliant social satire, it talks of a deposed European monarch who becomes a media sensation - all due to his acting skills captured on a hidden camera (long before the days of sting operations). The king considers selling toothpaste and whisky rather below his dignity at first, but gives in with his dire financial straits. The situation may not have been too similar with the one discussed in the previous paragraph, but one thing is surely common: accidental fame, ladies and gentlemen.

The Afghan girl on the cover of National Geographic may have never had a clue that she would become an icon for photographers, or the individual standing in front of the battle tank at Tiananmen may have never guessed he would become a symbol for resilience. For all that you know, these people may have just been carrying on with their normal lives till someone decided to make them famous.

Let me admit that I was inspired to resume blogging by someone who may have raked up a controversy by mistake with her below average vocabulary. Yes, we are looking for our nano seconds of fame. But as they say, at times, we do need to close our eyes for a while to realise, if this fame is accidental, or shaped like a Gandhi/Anna cap struggling to find its place under the arclights.

And yes, I am not getting paid by anyone after writing all this and indirectly showering attention on random blog writers and insanely famous comedians.