You know, at times I feel that we are taking ourselves too seriously. By us, I am referring to the blogosphere, twitterati, facebook and such social media platforms. I do agree about the good things that social media can do in our times, but I think sometimes we stretch this pride too far. One recent example is the change in the ruling system of Egypt.
Many people attribute the victory of Egyptian struggle to social media. But I don’t really get it. Were those people who marched towards Cairo actively participating in social media? How many of the Egyptians who live in Egypt have an internet connection or a smart phone? What help did social media do that the traditional wall posters or leaflets couldn’t do in this struggle?
Revolution can only happen when people actively participate in it. On the road. Many of the people whom I have seen participating in such struggles or agitations locally have come from the offline socio-cultural groups. Most of them seldom use Internet. Just clicking on a ‘Like’ button in a Facebook page or RT-ing a tweet would only make it armchair solidarity and nothing else. It would be interesting to take the statistics of how many of this “I Support!” guys have actually went on street for any such issues. Just ask these social media evangelists to participate in a local meeting to protest the arrest of Binayak Sen, for example. The first question from them would be, “you think I have nothing else to do with my life?” or a comment like “our people are too much politicized and there is too much unemployment that people go to these stupid meetings“.The same lot would be eager to register their protest on other issues by clicking a Like button in Facebook or by changing their Twitter profile pic.
I recall this funny quote I read in a friend’s FB page – “I don’t understand how Tunisians got their freedom without me filing an e-petition or changing my Twitter profile pic!“. That’s how we have become a socially concerned social media generation.
Also read – The myth of Egypt’s butterfly revolution