The virtual world and code of conduct

My daughter was just a toddler when she began to tell me what outfit or colours looked better on me. For me, hers is an opinion which matters the most — though not all of them can be described as polite. It would not be wrong to compare stating one’s opinion to a reflex action — it’s instinctive, honest, natural and terribly impulsive.

Social training, which you are subjected to through your growing years, programmes you to refrain from reeling off your opinion if you feel what you say may hurt the person it is addressed to.

“Place yourself in the other person’s shoes to see how he/she may have felt to listen to what you’ve just said.” That’s a part of the many lessons I have been taught, which I am now diligently handing over to my nine-year-old.  This, even while a nagging thought points out the fact that today, people around you wait for every opportunity to be able to call a spade a spade.

While critics in the media are paid to do so, it is now the virtual world that has somehow transformed into this battlefield of wit and words. The more sarcastic and rude you are, the better.

Terror-struck Mumbai, yet again. While some people chose to use networks to be of help, many others stuck to commenting and berating anybody and everybody they could think of blaming. Some others even brought out ‘relevant flaws’ in the system — including reportage — well, damned if you do your job, damned if you don’t. And by the end of those 140-odd characters, we fail to figure that we’ve lost the plot.

Speaking of plots, reading the innumerable number of opinions on Bollywood’s latest controversial entertainment production, Delhi Belly has become entertainment on its own merit. While reviews do give you a clue of what to expect, it is amusing to read opinions that seem to have been crafted even before one has subjected oneself to what they might find offensive.

Books and their authors too have often played victims of generously publicised criticism. Take for instance, a book that I have just finished reading, within a surprisingly short timeframe — The Immortals Of Meluha by Amish Tripathi. Even as the publishers announce an impressive sale of copies within the year by the debutant author, a part of the virtual world condemns the narrative and language as being quite off the mark.

Well, nothing wrong with putting out one’s opinion on the public forum now, or is there!?!

The virtual world has opened its doors to what one can largely classify as feedback — which is great. But what of all the individual frustration that gets vented out in the form of feedback? The online media, thankfully continues to be in control — enough to ensure that the feedback follows a certain code of conduct.

Either we have the rest of the virtual media be diplomatic about the way they put across their views, or we strengthen spades to face the truth.