Chetan Bhagat - the man whom social media loves to hate, with a lot of passion. I may not be the first or the last person composing a blog post to talk about this. But, since his latest book is out, why would I not want to encash the opportunity to talk about the man who has probably learnt to incite hate so effortlessly in the online world? And that is where, his genius lies. And I have two arguments to defend that.
My first explanation is based on social media itself. Twitter - probably the most powerful social network today - thrives a lot on the concept of hashtags, which can stimulate the nervous system of millions without the need to pump a drop of chemicals in the body. One of these hashtags a couple of years ago went by the name of ChetanBlocks - where Mr Bhagat, or CBag, as he is affectionately known to the online world - went about blocking anyone or everyone who showered any kind of reverse compliment on him on Twitter. The hashtag was in vogue for quite some time and has been brought back to life in various avatars since. But this is just one of the instances where he had to take the brickbats, which go to the extent of questioning his IIT credentials. More recent instances included his comments on childbirth and arguments with a technology tycoon. And of course, who can forget the 3 Idiots incident. In all this, what we may or may not have missed is that this was a very sophisticated ploy of going viral on the internet. Ladies and gentlemen, not for a moment am I saying here that the only way to gain someone's attention is to utter garbage all the time. But, take a look at the Twitter conversations around you - locally or globally - isn't it the negative that catches your attention most of the time? From a Poonam Pandey and KRK to a Charlie Sheen and a Sarah Palin. We love to heap scorn on the numerous reality shows on television that are an assault on our senses (and our rightly so). But, the TRP meters of the channels also go in hyperactive mode, mostly northwards. You may say that debate/talk/argument on such issues on social media is the world's way of cleaning up the system. But, look again - how many talking about such entities are actually more interested in reforming rather than finding some entertainment online? Alright, teaching celebrities how to talk may not be a subject of national importance, but pardon me, I was just having fun :)
And this is apart from the fact that an entire Twitter account based on Mr Bhagat's parody has a huge following (since I have met the person concerned in real life, nothing personal against you mate!). In short, there's no publicity like negative publicity - as the likes of KRK, Taslima Nasreen and Poonam Pandey have successfully learnt from Mr Bhagat.
My second argument tends to be more academic. In my professional capacity once, I had attended a talk given by Mr Bhagat once - where he recounted his experience of marketing one of his books as a commodity like rice or sugar at the neighbourhood kirana store. Right, so these are surely not the kind of books which are launched whilst the glitterati swirl the wine in their glasses. These are the kind of books whose success is celebrated by the publisher sending boxes of local candies to people who may contributed to the glory. These are not the kind of books on which you may want to write academic papers, but which originate from places you and I still can't ignore, like office cubicles. This may bring us to an entirely different debate - what defines a book? For safety sake let us assume that it is an aggregation amounting to anything above 5,000 words of one or many people's thoughts - even if it is not able to stand up to a Steinbeck or a Kundera. Why do I say so? Well, there comes social media again - people rarely want to click on link that contains more than 140 characters in a tweet. Or even look at mass media and popular culture - the rise of Twenty20 cricket or Maggi noodles. In such a scenario, when Mr Bhagat manages to catch peoples' attention with his racy reads - by writing a book - is it not something to think about? If people have low attention spans, it also means that they have lower composition spans. Hence, writing anything even above a thousand or two thousand words needs a lot of concentration - something that is hard to come by in the age of instant gratification. As an aside, I may add that those of you familiar with the concept of NaNoWriMo may be able to relate to what I'm talking about.
Hence, I do think that Chetan Bhagat is a genius (in a negative as well as a positive way), because, he has the words, he has the money and most importantly - he has your attention.
(this blogpost may not have been possible unless four people on Twitter - @69fubar, @storyelvis, @oneblackcoffee and @SomeBirdie - had not inspired me with their thoughts. Thank you!)
And this is apart from the fact that an entire Twitter account based on Mr Bhagat's parody has a huge following (since I have met the person concerned in real life, nothing personal against you mate!). In short, there's no publicity like negative publicity - as the likes of KRK, Taslima Nasreen and Poonam Pandey have successfully learnt from Mr Bhagat.
My second argument tends to be more academic. In my professional capacity once, I had attended a talk given by Mr Bhagat once - where he recounted his experience of marketing one of his books as a commodity like rice or sugar at the neighbourhood kirana store. Right, so these are surely not the kind of books which are launched whilst the glitterati swirl the wine in their glasses. These are the kind of books whose success is celebrated by the publisher sending boxes of local candies to people who may contributed to the glory. These are not the kind of books on which you may want to write academic papers, but which originate from places you and I still can't ignore, like office cubicles. This may bring us to an entirely different debate - what defines a book? For safety sake let us assume that it is an aggregation amounting to anything above 5,000 words of one or many people's thoughts - even if it is not able to stand up to a Steinbeck or a Kundera. Why do I say so? Well, there comes social media again - people rarely want to click on link that contains more than 140 characters in a tweet. Or even look at mass media and popular culture - the rise of Twenty20 cricket or Maggi noodles. In such a scenario, when Mr Bhagat manages to catch peoples' attention with his racy reads - by writing a book - is it not something to think about? If people have low attention spans, it also means that they have lower composition spans. Hence, writing anything even above a thousand or two thousand words needs a lot of concentration - something that is hard to come by in the age of instant gratification. As an aside, I may add that those of you familiar with the concept of NaNoWriMo may be able to relate to what I'm talking about.
Hence, I do think that Chetan Bhagat is a genius (in a negative as well as a positive way), because, he has the words, he has the money and most importantly - he has your attention.
(this blogpost may not have been possible unless four people on Twitter - @69fubar, @storyelvis, @oneblackcoffee and @SomeBirdie - had not inspired me with their thoughts. Thank you!)
6 comments:
He may or may not be a genius, it doesn't matter to me.
He's a good storyteller and that's just about enough.
My beef has always been with the idiots who ridicule him for no apparent reason, except to project themselves as 'cool'. For example, the parody account holder you've mentioned. I've read his tweets, and he's a lowly jackass.
The fact is that we on Twitter are a negligible percentage of people who read his books. And owing a Twitter account doesn't give anyone the right to ridicule him unnecessarily.
I tend to get worked about this issue, so I'll end this comment here.
Anyway, Chetan uses the publicity, and why shouldn't he? He's not a genius for using it, but he'd be a fool for not using it.
Saurin: I won't disagree that a lot of the ridicule aimed at him is unnecessary. But, it's like where the action is - maybe a Facebook today, or a Twitter tomorrow - where we get our seconds and minutes of fame by hurling abuse at successful people
The guy can sell books. Anything sells is fine. That's how it works.
I do not like his book for certain reason. It is a personal view. The problem is of course, on twitter a personal comment gets retweeted a million times- it becomes a 'public' opinion. Now we have a whole community which doesn't like something for various reasons. There is always an informed group and then there are those who do it 'just to look cool'.
As someone who writes and who has friends who write(very well at that) it does anger me that this sort of stuff gets published and not something which is 'better' in my view.
In 'two states' I found him pretty racist but that again doesn't stop me from saying he is a publishing success.
Also he has lowered the standard of publishing. When I find a grammatical error in the foreword or just bad writing becoming a best seller it is a question of lowering standards. We talk about the lowering of standards in so many things- consider this as another. he seems to have triggered a wave of 'bad writing'. But we can't blame him for that, we should blame the publishers probably.
We make fun of a TR or a Vijay(in Tamil movies) but they sell. There is Mani Rathnam movie and then there are those movies. Each appeals to a different set of people. That doesn't deny me the right to criticize nor does it take the right away from people to become fanatical about it.
The problem is when it becomes 'public opinion' things become black or white. Take the protests by Anna- some of us did not support him for various reasons...that doesn't make us corrupt or insensitive.
Good one.
Selling books is tough, and that guy is managing. If people didn't like his work, they would've stopped reading long ago.
First of all - Thank you for the mention :)
Personally, I like Chetan Bhagat. I have read all his books. All 4 of them. I loved 5PS and 2States. Other two were not as good.
Now something about his Twitter (-ve) popularity. Twitter is a place where one person's thoughts become mass opinion, if it catches attention of few popular 'tweeps'. Many people will just RT tweets to sound cool and to be a part of the trend. I know of many people who have not even read Bhagat but tweet that he is a moron and blah. Do their views matter?
Now I'm a literature student and have read loads of books. Books that have 'deep meanings', as most of the so called 'intellectuals' on Twitter like. But I've also read CB and like some his books because, I feel, it reflects contemporary India. He does not write sentences like Coelho but those are the sentences I use in my routine life. I like CB because I can relate to the characters he produces. His books are simple to understand and you can finish them in one night, feel entertained and proud that you have finished reading one complete novel, unlike many others that you start and leave after the 2nd chapter. That's all I can expect from a 120 rupee book that I read for a 'light-feel-good' factor and not to gain any intellect.
So to summarize it all, I like Chetan Bhagat's books and I don't care what people say about him on Twitter 'cauz most of them would probably not even know the number of books he has written, and who do know about him and still tweet c**p are the ones who are actually making him popular. Bwuahahaha!
Cheers!
Vishesh: What is bad writing and what is good writing forms the subject matter for another debate entirely, so I feel. Also, publishing standards may have been lowered but you and I are surely aware of many writers who get their mediocre books published by the most reputed companies simply because they have a name, so...
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