What’s news? The classic definition I heard as a kid still resonates in my mind: “When a dog bites a man, that’s not news. But if a man bites a dog, it is.” This sure is a loaded definition. But whoever said it, said it right.
News is that which is different from the normal. The rarer or less predictable the event, the bigger the news. But does that mean the media are there to just present the bizarre or the unreal? Not really, right?
The new society we live in loves it all the way it is. Today, the modern influences on our lives are focusing on normalising the abnormal. Even glorifying it. In many ways, the modern man, woman and child are brought up on a diet of the abnormal. The new normal is normalising the abnormal. Gourmandising it. Living in it vicariously.
Let me take you through a path of this thinking we find in abundance in our midst, starting with the most modern of mediums: social media. Take Instagram. I have just emerged from an exploration of a swathe of rural and deep-rural markets in India. The study is still on, but let me throw up some early numbers. The biggest single medium in our rural markets today is Instagram. (It used to be TikTok, till it was told to walk.)
The Insta posts that attract traction in our rural markets are the totally bizarre ones. Posts and Reels in particular that showcase the modern urban Indian are loved the most. Rural and deep-rural folks love to look at the urban Indian as if they are peering into an aquarium. They love to see gym videos. They are aspirational. Many actually use them along with YouTube videos to fashion their own regimen of workout.
And then there are the urban party videos. Our rural folk love to see the clothes we wear to clubs, the way we hold all those colourful drinks. In many ways, the life of the urban Indian is considered an ‘adult subject’ in rural markets. Our rural folks love to see and live vicariously through these posts, but would never want to do much of it.
For people in Karigiri and Mahiya, watching urban folk on Insta and YouTube is part of normalising the abnormal. It’s news to them. It’s something rural and deep-rural Indians are engrossed in for as much as 3 hours and 21 minutes a day, as the study shows till now. That’s a lot of time.
Let’s move to OTT, a revolution started by channels that used newer mediums to get ‘over the top’ of the standard television channels. OTT discovered to its delight that its audience was not the mass, it was a niche of those tired of television fare transmitted “over the air”. They had experimented with cable, which was bolder, and now there is OTT.
In the beginning, these channels explored themes that were bolder than what mass media was able to explore in a nation that would get angry when the content went berserk. Slowly but surely, OTT got bolder. It offered social and political themes, newer dressing styles, coarse language, more gore and even sex. As one OTT channel outdid another in the quest to grab audience share, the themes got bolder. The more abnormal the theme, the larger the audience. Serials such as Tribhuvan Mishra CA Topper became a hit en route.
We are getting a bit too used to the OTT fare. Now, if some of it happens in real life, we may not think it to be too abnormal. If you disagree with me, at least agree that it is on the way to being normalised. Modern cinema is taking cue from it, as is the politics of the day. Our books have always been different, but then they catered to those who went looking for them. OTT, cinema and politics are really not similar approaches—they run after people and seek the largest possible exposure for gain, monetary and political.
From a societal point of view, cutting a tree must be a sin of commission. But we are getting used to hearing that thousands of trees are going to be brought down in cities to build flyovers, roads and other allures of modern society. Do we protest it? Very few do. The largest segment has accepted what was abnormal not long ago—they agree trees ‘have to be’ cut down to put up buildings and roads. The complete removal of ecological sensitivity is part of the game of accepting the abnormal.
Traffic jams are also a new normal. A city is not a city if it does not take an hour to traverse 3 km. A city without pollution is not a metro. Accept it and move on, with soot in your lungs. Removing pollution sensitivity from our psyche is most certainly normalising the abnormal. Removing the hitherto normal will of the person to protest against something abnormal is part of the big game at play. Modern society has done it well.
Look around: a new society is here. We are concerned about very little else but ourselves and our family. Some of us are concerned about our locality. We clear up drains and stillwater collection points to keep dengue away. But that’s where it typically stops. All else is part of living. Just as we are mainstreaming the non-mainstream through our media and marketing efforts, we are equally committing a crime of non-mainstreaming the mainstream.
Is it time to sit up and smell the ditchwater? Have we even stopped smelling air pollution altogether? Have we accepted nasty and dirty politics as a given? Have we accepted corruption as a part of life and business? Have we accepted traffic jams as a part of commute? Have we accepted the guy riding his motorbike on the footpath as a part of living in a traffic-tight city? Have we accepted the neighbours burning garbage and dry leaf every Sunday as part of the new normal?
If we have, I think man bites dog is no more news. We live in the new normal. We have mainstreamed the non-mainstream. In the bargain, we have non-mainstreamed what was meant to be the mainstream.
Harish Bijoor
Brand guru & founder, Harish Bijoor Consults
(Views are personal)
(harishbijoor@hotmail.com)