It takes just 140 characters to send the media world into a tizzy. At least, that is what our print and electronic media seem to think. Film stars, cricketers, writers, journos, politicians and of course, their millions of followers are all on the microblogging website, Twitter. They just don’t tweet, but use the site to interact with their fans. Often their tweets spark hot conversations, gossip or make headlines and even get featured on TV during prime time.

The latest to send almost every other English TV news channel and English daily in India into a panic mode was a tweet by Hindi film actor Rishi Kapoor. On May 17, he tweeted: “Change Gandhi family assets named by Congress. Bandra/Worli Sea Link to Lata Mangeshkar or JRD Tata link road. Baap ka maal samjh rakha tha?”

He followed this tweet with two others in the same vein on his twitter handle @chintskap. That day TV channels had a field day with every anchor shouting hoarse, and every spokesperson of rival political parties going ballistic, as if Kapoor’s tweet was the crux to improve all things going wrong in India.

In the last one year, Kapoor has been making news on social networks by his very tongue-in-cheek comments on everything that he finds funny or that which makes him angry. He certainly has a great sense of humour; for his profile reads: “Son of famous Father-Father of famous Son. I am the hyphen in between them.” As he said in a recent interview, “I don’t smoke and right now I am jobless. So whenever I am bored, I tweet!” In the bargain he gets entertained by his more-than-a-million followers who either love his tweets or hate his guts.

When celebs tweet, the media roars

The ruckus created by tweets is mostly attached to some political moves by the Indian government. A comment on or against it creates such a frenzy, making it appear as though people have nothing better to do than increase traffic on social media.

In March this year, when some Indian States imposed a ban on the sale of beef, many took to the streets mostly in support of it, leading to riots and killings. Though every other person took to Twitter to express his/her opinion, it was Kapoor who got the flak, and was so relentlessly trolled that the ageing film star spent several days giving explainations. His tweet read, “I am angry. Why do you equate food with religion?? I am a beef-eating Hindu. Does that mean I am less God-fearing than a non-eater? Think!!”

It was his popularity on the network that got him into trouble. There were other stars, director, musicians who too came out heavily against this ban. Sonakshi Sinha’s tweet: “This is a free country! Welcome to BAN-istan. I meant India ... Stupid autocorrect” made many uncomfortable.

Director-writer Shirish Kunder (Joker, Jaan-i-Mann) and film-maker Farah Khan’s husband tweeted: “Don’t be surprised if the cows are given voting rights in the next election #BeefBan.” With more than 267,000 followers, Shirish’s tweets drip with sarcasm, fun and are also newsy. He had come in for a good following when he commented on actor Salman Khan’s film release date. It read, “There may soon be a generation that believes Eid is celebrated because a Salman Khan’s film is releasing.”

Of course, not every star makes it to the TV channels, and their panel of hysterical news anchors. A tweet by anyone has to be newsy, sarcastic, funny and hit at least one popular political party or a top star to get mass followers. Shah Rukh Khan sometimes makes it but, of late, has become very careful of what he writes and tries his best to keep away from making any political comments.

Utterly dejected by the reactions to whatever he wrote or said, SRK had tweeted, “Sad, I read so much judgements, jingoism, religious intolerance on the net & I used to think this platform will change narrow-mindedness, but no!”

To which Barkha Dutt, one of the most celebrated, hardworking and popular TV news anchor had said, “@iamsrk there is awful poison here. Sometimes think Twitter needs a rinse in the washing machine. Best to ignore with contempt.”

In fact, Dutt is one of the few English TV channel anchors who is massively trolled. Cricketers aren’t spared either. For days, Twitter went into a spin when Virat Kohli hadn’t performed in Australia and India lost in the semi finals of the World Cup in 2015. Twitter followers blamed the presence of actor Anushka Sharma, then in a relationship with Virat, for his poor form. And the same twitterati trolled Anushka when this year Virat has been performing well.

A San Antonio (USA)-based market research firm, Pear Analytics’s analysis of Twitter musings says 40 per cent of the tweets are pointless babble and only 4 pc are news.

Jack Dorsey, one of the founders of Twitter, admits that a message on Twitter is a “short burst of inconsequential information.”

Why waste precious time on inconsequential musings?

Published in Dawn, Sunday Magazine, July 10th, 2016