The online Messiah
There are three kinds of people on Facebook.
- Who would have a stance about whatever new is going on that they feel needs to be talked about (Hint: ranted about) (Double hint: Me)
- Who would scoff at the futility of ranting on Facebook about anything.
- Who would draw comparisons about what is important at the moment with what they think SHOULD be important, but isn’t, because it isn’t click-worthy enough/vulgar enough/generation’s broken.
The first one — deserving of being ignored, and trolled by friends, who would point out every time that you must have nothing better to do (guilty!). The second one, well, they’re right of course. Congratulations. No one ever thought of that. You’re as original as it gets.
But the third one — The moral police. Self-righteous “woke” humans on a mission. The unequivocal mirrors reflecting your inner shittiness resulting from caring about something, but not the “right” cause. Not what you “should” be caring about.
Oh yes. Please, put two pictures side-by-side why don’t you and tell me how one is unambiguously better than the other but yet less talked about because of this generation’s obsession with the ugly, the crass, and the vulgar.
Exhibit A:
Salman Muktadir getting pecked on the cheeks by a girl vs A gold medalist in Math:
For context, Salman Muktadir is a Bangladeshi Youtuber who’s famous for making funny videos which sometimes happen to include content that is deemed “racier” than what most of the country’s Muslim-majority population can stomach.
Moral police, abiding by his god-given duty, puts two pictures side-by-side, identifies the Youtuber, takes note of his fame and what he is famous for — making videos, takes a jab at “what kind of” videos he makes, and as part of his responsibility, whines about how the gold medalist does not get viral.
To be clear, I’m not a fan of the Youtuber. I wasn’t even a fan when one of my funniest friends who does not laugh at most Buzzfeed posts that have me rolling on the floor swooned over his “good looks” and how he’s genuinely hilarious. I did not, understand, what the fuss was about.
Nonetheless, guess what. He IS famous. For whatever the hell he has been doing. Neither putting him down, nor what the moral police thinks is “uplifting” another by comparing him with someone he thinks is not worth giving a damn about, is going to take one cent away from whatever fame he has accomplished to gain. What it WILL do, is give you that 50–100 or maybe 5000 shares you’ve been so badly DYING to get, while maintaining your holier-than-thou status. Congratulations. Higher-ground, achieved. You can now continue your eternal pursuit of attention by putting someone down who you think deserves it. After all, the price of fame, right?
Exhibit B:
Zafar Iqbal gets stabbed in the head vs an underrated and unknown professor that you’re not talking about:
Muhammed Zafar Iqbal is a Bangladeshi science fiction author, physicist, professor and activist. He received his PhD degree and worked as a post-doctoral researcher at California Institute of Technology (Caltech) from 1983 to 1988. He then joined Bell Communications Research (Bellcore), a separate corporation from the Bell Labs (now Telcordia Technologies), as a research scientist.
Iqbal is known for his stance against an Islamist party known as the Jamaat-e-Islami Bangladesh, and has generally been against fundamentalism, which is why, when on March 3, 2018, he was stabbed in the head by a militant who believed Zafar to be “an enemy of Islam”, the conservative majority of the country lauded the attacker’s attempt. Sadly, he survived the attack.
So, moral police posts a picture of a bearded teacher in a white punjabi (a type of clothing hailing from the ancient Punjab region which is popular in Bangladesh, India and Pakistan) who happens to be brilliant in his field and at the same time has in-depth knowledge about his faith. Yet, people do not talk about this person. Nooo, they talk about the other one. The one who is not quite as brilliant but revered by many, while understated, humble people such as the one the moral police has just brought to your attention are not glanced at twice. Point to be noted, this was right after the above-mentioned incident when Zafar Iqbal was in mortal danger.
Again, not a fan of Zafar Iqbal. Never read his books. Or, any book, as is evident from my way of writing. But I wonder is this:
You might not think this person’s as brilliant or knowledgeable or wise as the one you have so responsibly posted about, because, that’s what you do, obviously, ’cause, SOMEONE has to, but, this person, STILL, just took a stabbing and was almost about to DIE, right?
One begs the question, how high IS the price of fame anyways, when a person’s in a hospital bed after being attacked by a militant and still deserving of scrutiny just ’cause he’s famous.
But what do I know. I’m exactly the kind of people these messianic creatures need to teach.
