Samir Nazareth
In 1894 Jean-Baptiste Alphonse Karr, the French writer wrote ‘plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose’ – the more things change the more they remain the same. Centuries earlier, Heraclitus said ‘Potamō gar ouk an embaiēs dis tō autō’ – you cannot step into the same river twice. Though it may be all Greek and Roman alphabets, the nuanced truth – change is the only constant – is universal. Are what we see, hear and say mere echoes?
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One difference between then and now is the existence of social media, its accessibility, and purported unbiasedness. It makes content easy to create, disseminate, adjudicate, emulate, repudiate.
Then, is social media just a vessel to serve reheated nourishment that is willingly consumed?
Same but different
Mary Kondo became a social media phenomenon with her system of decluttering.
Decluttering is a by-product of economic progress. As society becomes wealthy, more is purchased and the desire to “keep up with the Jones’” fuels a churn of personal and household items. Concepts like ‘keeping an orderly home’ in the 1930’s and 40’s, books like ‘The Joy of Organising’ by Rita Emmett published in the 70’s discussed ways to, what is now seen as, declutter the house. What Marie Kondo brought to an old conundrum was a shift from functionality and utilitarianism to the esoteric – retaining things that ‘spark joy’. Her joyful minimalism was criticised as it created waste, caused confusion between personal and family definitions of joy. It led to the re-emphasis of concepts like reuse, repurpose, and ideas like conscious consumerism.
Then there are travel bloggers sharing their experiences on social media. This sharing fund’s their adventures. Now are these people bitten by the travel, and sharing, bug or have they found a way to monetise what they like? But is such travel and recording it something new? Herodotus (484–425 BCE) wrote ‘The Histories’ which detailed his travels through the ancient world. There was Marco Polo who travelled to China. Ibn Battuta wrote The Rihla (The Journey) which detailed his 30- year sojourn through various parts of the world. Fa Hien and Xuanzang travelled to India from China. Trips recorded for social media tap into the voyeur-who-wishes-to-emulate in us, and therefore appears more enticing than the journeys of these early travellers.
Catering to social media
Food on social media has a variety of subsets –those sharing new recipes; others chowing-down copious quantities of food; some creating clips of visits to restaurants. Others forage for places to eat or that locals allegedly swear-by, and record the food being prepared. All have one thing in common – they get into paroxysms of delight as soon as a morsel of that food enters their mouth.
In India, many food stalls are prepped for those who scour the streets looking to ‘discover’ eateries. The chefs in these places give easy-to-prepare dishes a make-over. A simple egg preparation which earlier would have an egg cracked over a melange of spices undergoes plastic surgery.
The chef uses fresh eggs, the yellow of a boiled egg, copious amounts of butter, Amul cheese, and cottage cheese to make this dish. A fried egg over this remarkable dish is the pièce de résistance. The blogger records the process while making sounds of appreciative wonder.
To grab more eye-balls and suppress a viewer’s desire to swipe to the next clip, the blogger and the chef form a symbiotic relationship. Sometimes, bloggers use emotive captions such as ‘hardworking uncle’ to tug at potential viewers’ heartstring.
Having said that, cuisine is constantly evolving – chicken tikka masala; paneer and Chinese dosa; Hawaiian pizza are examples of this evolution. But these were done to attract customers, to reduce operation costs, and surely not for visual consumption.
Like in the real world, content makers value the first-mover-advantage, and suffer from Fear of Missing Out (FOMO). Hashtags suggests one is being made to consume ‘more of the same’. Unsurprisingly, content on social media feeds-off, and builds on, each other.
A Rose by any name
Often, old content is re-purposed to create ‘new content’ that reaffirms an old adage.
Hmmm! A doubting Thomas, are we? Here are two examples to convert you.
Many social media content creators repurpose old videos and photographs. These are occasionally anthropomorphised. The video of a bear cub struggling to follow its mother up a steep snowy incline no longer is about nature but becomes a lesson on determination and staying the course, until one succeeds. The much-viewed image of a couple holding hands while the male partner looks back at another woman which may have been used to examine human relationships earlier is now used to discuss everything from consumerism to political affiliations.
The adage ‘try and try until you succeed’ is ancient. The fickleness of consumerism and political affiliation is stale news. However, when words once assigned to old photos and video clips are replaced with new words, the content becomes different and generates many eyeballs and aha moments. The viewer is reminded of dusty rule-of-thumbs while subconsciously marvelling at the creativity of the person who put two old things together to make something new.
Creativity and Too Many Cooks
Social media is challenged by short attention spans and lack of originality. LinkedIn has 3 million content creators who post weekly. TikTok and Instagram have 50 million active content creators each, while YouTube has 114 million active channels. How many new things can be said between these creators? Even advertisers have this challenge. Ever watched a car advertisement that does not speak about speed, power, luxury, mileage or some form of escape?
Is social media just old wine in a new bottle? Or does it put two well-worn adages together – ‘context is everything’ and ‘it is not what you say but how you say it that matters’ – and make three?
(Samir Nazareth is an
author and writes on
socio-economic and
environmental issues)
