I was on my phone the other day. My friend lost his wallet & he posted #BringBackMyWallet. I laughed so hard that day. The following day I was in a lecture & my friend showed me a video of the first of the kidnapped girls being stoned to death. She was a real person & she died painfully. She existed somewhere out there beyond the million hash-tags. And as she was being dug into a hole about to die, someone out there was applying lipstick to their lips, getting ready to take a #BringBackOurGirls selfie, inspired by the possibility of Facebook likes & Twitter re-tweets. What an absolute mess. It hit me so hard that day that the media & social networks have the most devastatingly dehumanising effect on serious global matters. I then remembered my initial dislike for that first #BringBackOurGirls picture that Michelle Obama posted. I remember thinking back then, that despite the good intentions of this campaign, this would turn into just another social network frenzy. Another saga, another online trend, another headline story making millions to which wed have no real emotional connection. People posting hash-tags just for the sake of it with no genuine interest or care in the matter. Soon people started using it as a platform to crack jokes. Jay Z said #BringBackOurGirls & take Solange, Jay Z said #BringBackMyDignity. We all laughed so hard at these jokes, myself included. Its all so funny, but is it really? Because I saw a real school girl dug in a hole to her neck with a piece of cloth over her face & in what was more chilling than the stoning of Soraya, jagged, brick sized stones were hurled at her head with the force of a baseball pitcher. And beyond the virtual realm of our Facebook & Twitter accounts, news channels & newspaper prints, this girl existed. Beyond the ignorant comfort of my internet access, she was real. But of course to us its just another saga that will pass as these sagas do. We live in todays world & in todays world social networks & the media can turn anything into a next best thing till the next best thing comes along. Even the kidnapping & systematic killing of 276 innocent teenage school girls. Now let me scroll my timeline for Oscar Pistorius jokes. Because God forbid we forget that an innocent woman was murdered.
Posted on: Thu, 29 May 2014 08:00:39 +0000
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