Why twitter loves Alok Nath?

Over the last few weeks, we all saw Alok Nath, Neil Nitin Mukesh and then Arvind Kejriwal jokes taking over the fancy of twitterati. It’s difficult to escape these kind of single personality- based lampooning happeing on twitter these days. This trend is not going to end here and many more will be subjected to this twitter phenomenon, soon. These jibes and jokes, however offensive it would have sounded to Alok Nath, were enjoyed by many, if not all people on twitter.

So what explains this phenomenon? It’s easy to cite the individual peculiarities associated with Alok Nath or Neil Nitin Mukesh to explain them being the target this time. Why has twitter become the platform for this kind of derision? The popularity of twitter, ease of usage and the liberty of broadcasting individual thoughts are seemingly obvious reasons for this. But from the media and communication point of view, this demands some other explanation. The larger occurrence of twitter jokes in Indian media sphere can be attempted to be explained by communication theories. This trend also tends to have some cultural context to it.

If we see the kind of statements which emanates from media, politicians and workplaces engulfing every minute of our life, a lot of these statements are of little meaning to most of its receivers. Many of these opinions and statements surrounding us, hold meaning mostly for the statement maker and the receiver can have multiple interpretations of them. When a popular actor before his movie launch says that his character in the movie is “different”, it’s only the actor who understand what difference he is talking about. The listener subjected to this “difference” (or the lack of it) even though understands the futility of any expectation of any real difference, he still consumes the thought. In a similar manner, when policy makers say that the new policies will have far reaching impact, it’s left to the audience to reach far to search for its meaning.. Our lives are full of hackneyed words, the meaning of which are often difficult to understand. Day in and day out, we are fed and living on the kind of communication scientifically called Polysomic communication, which refers to the idea of different people interpreting the same message in a different way. In contrast to this form of communication, Twitter with its 140 characters linear communication model trounces the hackneyed. Twitter becomes a simple communication tool which offers meaning and is simple to understand, devoid of multiple interpretations. In a country where media is considered a powerful weapon of influence, twitter offers the power of media to everyone and offers a kind of antidote to the prevailing banality associated with the mainstream communication.

In the Indian context, another reason which can be offered, explaining this twitter phenomenon is more cultural in origin. India as a society, is used to communication masked in niceties. Most of the communication and social interaction tends to be more indirect and immensely formal. Humility and elaborate apologies are typical. Context becomes more important than words. Flowery language has always superseded the more directness. Sociologist term these as traits of high context societies. India and many Asian countries are considered to be high context societies and culturally behave very different than the low context societies of North America and most part of Europe where communication is more direct, linear and action oriented. It is in this context, that tweeters love for humor in India can be rightly observed. The jokes and unabashed blabbering on twitter challenges the all-prevailing formal and humility of our society. Twitter jokes seem to be the fight of individuals against the love for interpersonal. For our culture, communication exchanges are governed by feelings rather than reason, twitter is the voice against the flowery language. There is a fine line between humor and sarcasm. This is the revenge of the unambiguous against the platitudes. It’s the revenge of directness over the embellishment.

Let’s see who’s the next stooge?