So they say the internet generation is a pretentious charlatan. Perhaps true, in the rat race to know everything, they ended up knowing nothing. Information available at finger tips but no one to process that information. We simply rely on the so-called "reviews" and then make decisions. Be it simple book and movie reviews or the review about how a politician performed during their tenure. Opinions on a diverse range of topics are nothing but opinions of other people without even knowing why.
What this reservoir of unlimited information has made them is not genius, but critics. Mindless critics. It is just impossible to please them with anything!
Sarcasm seems to be the mother tongue. 95% of the tweets are nothing but sarcastic comments about people you don't even know personally. It surprises me to see that most of the times it is not their work we tend to criticize, we end up criticizing the person himself!
The day people are exposed to the internet, that very instant is born their hatred for Justin Beiber or One Direction. On what basis? Oh right, on the basis of being cool, is it?
Take for instance Alia Bhatt. What is really wrong if she doesn't know the name of the President of India? Why did we start bombing the social networks with tons of Alia Bhatt Memes depicting her "blonde nature"? It is quite possible that her field of work doesn't allow her to catch up with politics or she is simply not interested in the nature of the subject. What she needs to be criticized upon is her dancing skills, acting skills or looks. That's precisely what her work demands!
Consider this, had this great mathematician not known a very popular Bollywood song, what would our reaction be? "Oh, he is pretty busy doing intellectual stuff. He doesn't have time for this."
So why can't we give a very similar, unbiased, uncritical opinion for her?
Agreeing to the fact that little and less knowledge about things really has far more implications than I have elaborated over here but the overdose of criticism is something which really irritates me to the core.
Truth is, people don't have the guts to appreciate.
Work your ass off, run haywire to get things done, go out of the way to make stuff happen and yet, zero appreciation. Because we're too busy finding flaws and commenting sarcastically about it. Days of constructive criticism are long gone. It's only commenting for the sake of commenting.
Another recent example would be 'Sarthak Agarwal' memes. Does that tenth grade boy deserve that? Nobody came forward saying achieving a whopping 99.6% was a major milestone but everyone came with so called witty memes. There are even pages on the him! I really can't imagine how it will be in his shoes.
Time and again the lost nature of appreciation has been the reason for fear of failure. In the midst of struggle, overcoming difficulties and challenges, when one looks up to find hope, he is given either discouragement or worse, false hopes and a long saintly advice.
It is always too late before we realize that we need to acknowledge certain things explicitly, that it needs to be stood up and told. That it is not a sign of weakness but of gratitude.
Why do we wait for people to die and then appreciate them with titles and awards beginning with "In the loving memory of.. " Why does Google have doodles on the birthdays of only people who are dead? Why not celebrate the living? Make them feel good about the contribution they have made to the society as artists, mathematicians or philosophers for that matter.
Forget them, when was the last time I stood up to appreciate someone and tell them they did a good job? In my heart I probably felt so, but out of envy or rather out of habit (of overlooking the good intentions) I never took the courage to tell them so.
Before it gets too late, before they're long gone, the one least thing which we all could do is call them up or drop them a message admiring things we really regard from the bottom of our heart and let them know how much it matters to us. You'll probably make someone's day in these critical internet times!
