The recent controversy on ‘India’s Got Latent’ show on YouTube sent shockwaves across India, thanks to a controversial joke that landed both the owner of the channel and the author of the joke in legal trouble following a bunch of registered FIRs for obscenity in the remarks made during an episode.
This isn’t the first time such an ugly, obscene remark has been made on social media without actually considering the consequences. Social media has perpetrated this trend of posting or saying anything without thinking twice since accountability here is negligible. Technology has indeed birthed strange new-age issues.
Technology, undoubtedly, comes with many advantages, but it also big drawbacks and they are being witnessed as we dive deeper into technology. For example, cyber-bullying. Cyber-bullying is when someone intentionally uses technology to harass another person.
There is a peculiar trend that is on the rise among social media users – they call it roasting. Internet roasting, usually, is a type of comedy, dry humour where you make fun of someone. It probably began with people making fun of celebrities but in the recent times, this trend has started turning sour with people using coarse, vulgar insults under the pretext of ‘roasting’. Nowadays roasting is more like bullying someone on the internet simply because you don’t like them or don’t agree with their ideas. Because everyone is using social media, it is quite simple for someone to abuse another one.
Cyber-bullying has risen significantly in the recent years. It covers acts intended to coerce, harass, and disparage someone. These hostile acts are extremely harmful and can have a major and immediate impact on anyone. They happen on public forums, social media, and other platforms that provide information. Cyber-bullies might be people you know… so they are not always strangers.
Cyber-bullying is a complex problem. However, the goal of this act is the same – to injure and cause harm to others. It is a serious issue. Given the numerous harmful consequences it can have on the victim, it must be managed carefully.
It is no big guess that it disrupts a person’s mental peace. After being cyber-bullied, depression has been known to strike many people. It is reported that they also engage in self-destructive behaviour as a result. They are made to feel inferior by disparaging remarks. And thus they develop complexes and insecurities. When someone experiences cyber-bullying in the form of harassment, they begin to doubt themselves. It just seems to make their insecurities worse when someone calls them out. So often, the victims get anxious and lose their inner calm.
Cyber-bullying or roasting is a dangerous trend that is stealing grace and sensitivity in people, driving victims towards depression and negative self-image. And women are often the worst victims.
And then cyber-bullying damages a person’s reputation. The false rumours that are spread about them damage their reputation. On social media, everything spreads like wildfire. Credibility is frequently questioned. A life can be so deeply destroyed by a single false rumour. It’s a common trend nowadays and affects women more than men. Women influencers are targetted more than their male counterparts with people commenting on their bodies, their relationships.
Jammu & Kashmir, with its more conservative population, seems to incorporate more of this targeted bullying. Men here seem to be more invested in creating content targeting especially women influencers, and earning followers.
Misogyny clearly pervades the social media in Kashmir. Although these digital platforms facilitate opportunities for self-expression and interpersonal connectivity, they simultaneously engender an environment conducive to deleterious conduct and gender-based violence.
Scholarly assessments indicate that the escalation of cyber misogyny constitutes a formidable obstacle to the safety and welfare of women in Kashmir, thereby underscoring the urgent necessity for holistic strategies to effectively tackle this critical issue. A classic example of this was when recently the interview of Dr Bilkees, one of the senior gynaecologists here, went online, and the men were observed making vulgar comments on her looks, criticising her for not covering her head, having short hair et al while diminishing the purpose of the interview. This isn’t something that has happened now; it’s been prevalent for a long time and every time a woman comes online to express herself, she’s often cyber-bullied.
As for handling it, a woman influencer, talking to KC, says she chooses to ignore cyber bullies or those who roast because “it is not worth the trouble to think about it and it’s better to accept that it’s in the nature of such people to be mean and it can’t be changed”.
Recently a video surfaced online about man talking about how he divorced his wife after two days of the wedding because he had uploaded a picture of himself with his wife and among the comments was one guy claiming that the woman in the picture was his ex-girlfriend! This is something of grave concern… how can a person break the sacred bond of marriage just after reading one comment? What is of even bigger concern is how most men praised the man for divorcing his wife because she was previously dating somebody else! The men also made vulgar slurs directed at the woman, questioning her morality and purity. Nobody questioned the morals of the man who, in the first place, uploaded the image of his wife for social media people to see.
While researching this article, I spoke to a psychotherapist – Yaqeen Sikander who remarked, “The pervasive culture of online roasting and cyber bullying that I often witness on pages and profiles related to Kashmir is contributing to a concerning trend of emotional desensitization among the youth. Psychological research indicates that repeated exposure to aggressive humour and public humiliation can erode empathy, reinforcing mal-adaptive social behaviours. In the context of Kashmir where socio-political stress already shapes the psychological well-being of young individuals, this digital hostility can exacerbate emotional distress and normalise antagonistic interactions. As a psychotherapist, I emphasise the need for digital literacy and responsible engagement- encouraging discourse that fosters critical thinking and emotional intelligence rather than reinforcing patterns of insensitivity and psychological harm”.
This is no small issue. It needs attention and wise handling.
