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.
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).
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.
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