‘You fetch social-media likes.’ It was October 2022, and I was on my way to Australia for the T20 World Cup. I was checking in at Kolkata Airport when I got a call from Subhayan Chakraborty, one of my colleagues. He asked if I was amenable to two young and aspiring social-media influencers working with him on a show. I had always wanted to promote new talent on the RevSportz platform. But when he mentioned their names to me, a switch was flicked in my head.
These two gentlemen, whom I have subsequently come to know reasonably well, had both posted multiple tweets against me during the controversy. How was it that they wanted to work on a platform I had founded? I did not tell Subhayan any of this, of course, and just asked him to send me their numbers so that I could have a word. I intended to ask them why they had written what they had. Were they asked to do so by somebody? Why else would two young cricket enthusiasts, who did not even remotely know me, jump on the bandwagon and take a public stand against me without having a clue as to what had really happened?
Within moments, Subhayan had sent me the numbers. I called them from the lounge of the International Airport. Again, Debasis was with me, as we were traveling together on the Singapore Airlines flight. The conversations were startling. Both chats exposed the deep malaise that has now got social media in a vice-like grip. When I introduced myself, one of them seemed a little taken aback. That was before he told me that it would be great if we could work together. I said I had no problem with anyone doing quality work on the RevSportz platform, but I needed to know who, or what, had prompted him to target me in April 2022.
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‘If I have to be honest and tell you the truth, it was the done thing then,’ he replied, a little sheepishly. ‘A tweet against you would fetch 500 likes, and add to my subscriber base.’ I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. He and his friend had indiscriminately attacked a complete stranger, in exchange for some social media likes and an increased subscriber base. Not sparing a thought about the person’s family or their mental health. At the same time, I was pleased that this young man spoke the truth. It showed courage of a kind to at least explain why he had done. Each of these men are in their twenties, young and impressionable minds whose lives are controlled by the number of likes or followers on Twitter and Instagram. A few hundred likes give them some kind of high, almost like a drug, and a few thousand subscribers means that you have arrived. The addition of another thousand subscribers usually means a celebratory card thanking the ‘Twitter family’ and the like. They haven’t seen enough of the world yet to realise just how fleeting these things are. That, in the final analysis, none of this really matters. What does is hard work, and how willing you are to go the extra mile.
The second response was even more revealing. ‘When it is between you and a cricketer, it is natural which side one should be on,’ the second gent told me. ‘However popular you are or whatever work you may have done as a journalist, public sentiment will always be with the cricketer. So it was natural that I would tweet in his favour. If I tweeted supporting you, I would have been trolled brutally.’ Again, the honest confession brought a wry smile to my face. I was face-to-face with ground realities that I was well aware of but had never really had to confront. This is what a social media witch-hunt is all about. The side that makes the most noise, or amplifies it cleverly, always wins. A pre-existing position of social acceptance, the status of being a star in the public imagination and having that privilege (and hence a certain position of power), unlike a journalist, also becomes a clincher. Reason and logic don’t often stand a chance.
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