Are memes ruining lives?
“Meme” is the new age term for the customized pictorial content through which creators share content. Memes have become a daily part of our timelines, status and WhatsApp sharings. Most of the time, it may become a reason for our smile or laughter. But after reading this article you would definitely think about the dark side of it.
The person in the above picture is a reporter, whose video went viral five years ago, due to his angry attitude toward subordinates. You can find a number of meme templates, Whatsapp stickers based on his facial expressions and dialogues, which are used without his consent in a very derogatory manner. No one knew his name or his place, or his real nature, but due to one video, he was ‘famous’(Infamous). When I tried to inquire about the person I got to know about his name and how the meme destroyed his whole career, how he was treated for depression and spent more than 4 years in a single room out of humiliation. The good news is, he is recently back again to pursue his career. But what happened? again memes started pouring about him.
Now let us analyze the situation. No person is good or no person is bad, everyone would have faced or would have been in situations where they would have done a mistake. The best boon God has given to mankind is “To forget”. Yes, we keep good moments in mind and we tend to forget or remove bad experiences from our mind. But just imagine someone video records or makes a meme on a bad experience you have faced and the same thing is going viral? People tend to forget all the good deeds about you and just ask that one incident, laugh at you for your entire life. It is not less than killing a person, even if he is just breathing.
Memers or content creators are having great freedom of expression, which a top media house also doesn’t enjoy as they are bound to policies. The reason is there is no framework to curb such content in this new technical era. Memers didn’t spare kids too, look at the example below.
Popularly known as CSK boy, this little kid was crying for the CSK’s loss in the last IPL season. He was bullied by his street kids and we can see him shouting and chasing them in the video. Now, the worst part is, he is a meme know, the dialogues which he said is used as T-shirt quotes, his images are used regularly on the internet whenever CSK loses. The point here is, he is a small kid who was cheering up for his favourite team and was unable to digest the team’s loss. Instead of imbibing sports culture and teaching him about the win-lose situation in life and how to deal with it. Now memers made a meme about his crying face, which will go viral making the kid a laughing stock not only in his street. But in the entire state. Do you literally think this would create a better generation?
And the worst part is when a group of people attacked a person house near Tirupati. Where we can see the person is pleading for help, no one helped him. In turn he was made a meme material.
In the image, you can see, how he was pleading with the goons to leave him alone. But people made this video viral and Memes started pouring about him. There are dedicated apps, youtube channels on his name which are making money using his ignorance. We can see people visiting and offering him alcohol on youtube channels. Just to tease him and get fun once he is drunk. Do you think instead of uplifting his economic situation or providing him with a proper job? We are setting a wrong example to our next generation that teasing, bullying people will give us happiness?
With the current technological developments, Its crystal clear that Governments cannot create frameworks or laws for the internet, as mankind themselves created a virtual world that has both web and dark web which are not in reach of any government. People ethical values are going down, all we need is the enjoyment which we may get by any means. To curb the above situation. We enthusiastic software consultants Swaroop, Rajdeep, Sailendra have formed a cyber army of 35,000 like-minded students for the same cause, through which we will try our best to remove such content before getting viral using all our expertise and contacts.
We would love to thank Jaketa media Pvt limited, Origin cloud technologies Pvt limited, Gunda corporation Pvt limited for funding and extending support for the same. We would love to solve the real problems of the internet and pave a way for better internet where people can prosper, innovate and create a better generation further rather than bullying, sharing obscene content which is ruining lives than creating a better society.
If you want you to want to help any of such people who are cyberbullied or any obscene content of them is going viral or any Youtube pranksters have uploaded a video of them without there consent etc. you can mail us “Writetous@storiesofcommonman.in” or individually ping us on our respected profiles to which we will revert back.