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Armaan Malik can do what he likes with his personal life, but why is social media forcing it into my feed as pop ups?
Photo by Andre Hunter on Unsplash
Teacher: Student, tell me who, are newsmakers?
Raju: Great individuals who crash the internet with their exceptional work.
Teacher(smiling broadly): Excellent, Raju! Can you cite an example?
Raju(slyly): Sir, Armaan Mallik!
The teacher dismisses the class as students convulse with fits of laughter.
Well, this is a figment of my imagination but could soon turn into a reality. Now, you are still wondering who is Armaan Malik. Pity your general knowledge because this man’s prank of a third wedding video just reached 2.2 million views! Crass number!
Yes, Armaan Mallik is one of the highest-paidYouTubersin the country. He is married to Payal Mallik and Kritika Mallik, and both women are currently pregnant with his child. Payal and Armaan are already parents to an eight-year-old, Chirayu Mallik. All three co-exist happily under one roof. Or that is what his videos suggest.
Who am I to comment on his way of life? A worried parent. A citizen bread on monogamy. An irked consumer of the viral content. You have a choice to say, “Mind your own business!” But my concern is why are people putting on display their shitty business. Whatever prank Armaan Mallik plays does it deserve 2.3 million views? What content is our GenNext exposed to? Are we so robbed of our modesty that we can’t keep our personal matters to ourselves? Is making everything public essential?
The face and definition of role models are changing. YouTube has liberated us from a nine-to-nine desk job. Young adults are shunning white-collar jobs and preferring content creation as a new source of economy. The consumer is fed on juicy gossip about one’s personal life. Till the time, this gossips was real and not created, things were digestible. Now, one on purpose creates a storm in a teacup which we devour with our morning cuppa. We are faced with questions from teenagers, on who is Armaan Mallik and how cool his parents are, who allowed him to marry twice, rather than who is Rishi Sunak and how he became the Prime Minister of UK.
The transformation is hitting hard, back home.
I hold no grudges against Armaan per se. He may marry even for the third, fourth, or fifth time. The ekpeek free bug has bitten many, then why should Armaan be an exception to this marketing rule?
May he be the knight in shining armor for many women, if that is what makes the women happy. God bless the tribe.
My concern is over why the hell, the media, YouTube, and other social media making it sensational news! Why does it have to pop up on my screen when I am eager to read Nirmala Sitharaman’s budget?
Money-making is the sole virtue, I get it. But at least show me something palatable. I understand my article is going to make you go, and watch that cringe-worthy video, where Armaan tells his two pregnant wives that he has married for the third time. In the video, the women are seen pushing, abusing, and blaming the third woman, Lakshaya, for breaking their marriage. Wow!! Can anything get better than this? Later, our macho man, the uber-cool, Armaan, comes to their aid and says, he loves them too much and can never imagine marrying a third woman. It was just a prank!
The other day, my husband also pranked me by remembering our special day. The only thing, the cake read Happy Wedding Anniversary instead of Happy Dating Anniversary. To which he covered up, saying ‘April Fool, April Fool’ in February!
I wish I had a YouTube channel and fan following that would have either loved me or trolled us for this content. Any which way, it would have been a win-win situation, with YouTube paying me some jingles to buy a new cake that would bear a perfect wish. Chit bhimeri, pat bhimeri!
But no. I’m taught not to wash my dirty linen in public. Everything has to be a hush-hush affair. If my husband is an alcoholic, it should be my pride. If my husband is a womanizer, it should be my biggest kept secret. If my husband tramples upon my choices and desires, it is my fate. All of this possible, but it is definitely not a content to be even shared with my best friend, forget it creating ripples on social media.
News is what we make out of a piece of information. I sneezed could well be made into a news proclaiming, ‘A woman in her thirties goes about infecting millions with the deadly influenza bug!’ See, I just gave you a piece of information. Go make it viral while I earn some money out of my sneezing. You will not. Maybe, you are one of the few sensible individuals the earth is counting on. Your sensibility will even call my this article, a form of trolling.
Yes, I am trolling ArmaanMallik. Not for his choices but for making his choices viral on social media and influencing the youth to follow in his footsteps. I’m against his ways of earning money, by attracting people to watch how he disposes of his filth.
Is my wrath justified? My mother used to say, “There will be all sorts of things to pick from. You have no control over what is being offered but you can definitely decide what you want to buy.” Autonomy over our choices, my good old woman had taught me. If we don’t learn to excise the freedom to voice our concerns, we are inviting bigger troubles. We are jeopardizing the nation’s future by not speaking against the content that is being served to us. YouTube is leaving a rich legacy of luxury and bank balance to its successors. What are we passing on to our children?
WAKE UP!
Or else the bigger pandemic is here. Are we vaccinated?
Aparna, residing in Mumbai, is a consulting homoeopath and edupreneur by day and loves to find comfort in books by twilight. Writing has allowed her to express without wagging her tongue. She has contributed to read more...
This post has published with none or minimal editorial intervention. Women's Web is an open platform that publishes a diversity of views, individual posts do not necessarily represent the platform's views and opinions at all times.
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