The power of 140
Dipped in Witriol
AJITH PILLAI
Two decades ago Swami Editoananda was an ordinary crime reporter with a daily newspaper which published out of Delhi. His metamorphosis from a scribe who attended depressing police press briefings to a holy man and a seer of visions happened after he stole a crystal ball from a Hungarian gypsy holidaying in Goa. The orb in question, made from the finest cut glass, was used by its original owner to divine things inane like summer temperatures in Budapest five years hence and the pop hits of the following year. Editoananda (then known as Raghav Raga) was surprised and shocked at the manner in which good glass was being wasted. So, after a sleepless night of thinking and pondering he decided the time had come to act. “I’m made for better things in life,” he told himself. In a frenzied, sleepless but determined state of mind he did what was till then unthinkable for him—committing a crime. In fact, like a petty thief he slinked into the gypsy’s room through an open French window and made good with the Gucci travel bag in which the crystal ball was stored. He left behind this terse note: “Extremely sorry mate. You could say it was a steal. But I sure will have a ball. Insincerely, RR.”
From Goa to the Khandala hills near Pune was a hop, skip and jump by bus. On the overnight journey RR decided that he will forget all about stealing from the gypsy and will henceforth have a new name and identity. Thus came into existence his holiness Swami Editoananda, aka Edictoananda, who in times to come would predict the future of ordinary mortals and the fortunes of the rich and famous. His dependence on the crystal ball for his various pronouncements did not go unnoticed and earned him the moniker “Swami with a touch of glass.” And the fact that he tossed and turned on a bed scattered with currency notes (his daily earnings) more than justified the popular notion that he was rolling in money. But despite all the material success, once every five years, the Swami made it a point to take time out to gaze into future trends in the media. He does this without any publicity or hype although in July 2008 he did try in vain to get a publisher for his predictions. Last week, it was media time once again and the crystal ball was out. After gazing at it for five hours and with a little help from a cocktail of hallucinogens the Swami emerged from his sanctum sanctorum to give this interview on the condition that his identity will not be protected. Excerpts:
The Hoot (TH): In 2008...
Swami Editoananda—SE--(interrupting): Let me clear the air on what happened on this very day—July 4-- five years ago. My predictions then related to the excessive use of SMS by mediapersons and how it will finally impact their language. I foolishly thought that since this was a universal phenomenon I should put my observations about lingua SMS in a book form for the world to read. But I had differences with my publishers—Simon’s nephew and Schuster’s niece—who wanted to change the title I suggested—“Wha da ell?” -- that I thought was quite appropriate. Their alternative “Alphabet Murder and other Gory Gothic Tales” was in my view too cheesy. So I tore up the manuscript and ate it with a generous helping of eggless mayonnaise and sent a text to my friends dat I wld ave nutin to do with publishers.
TH: Swamiji, forget 2008. Tell us what do you have for us this time?
SE: Some very interesting things about Twitter and its impact on the media. You may ask why Twitter? Well the future lies there. It is not only one step ahead of texting but politicians are currently getting followers on the social media by hook or by crook and trumpeting the fact that they have one million, two million fans. You may have read about the BJP alleging that Rajasthan chief minister Ashok Gehlot had paid for fake fans on Facebook. I believe most politicians, including the BJPwalas, and celebs are buying popularity.
Anyway, that’s beside the point. Getting back to my crystal ball, if it is to believed then the day is not far when a journalist’s worth will be gauged by the number of people who follow (no reference to IB operatives) him or her on Twitter. So, in the future the first question that will be asked at any job interview is whether you are on Twitter and how many followers you have. Well, you can save face by saying you are on Facebook. But Twitter is Twitter—a thing of beauty, as they will soon say, will be 140 characters forever.
TH: Will future employees be looking at what you tweet?
SE: Well, your test will be filing extremely telegraphic copy. For example, a report on parliamentary proceedings will run like this: “Oppo walk in, scream, shout, walk out. Walk in again and walk out. Repeated five times.” You see, the future paper will be as slim and small as a cellphone—one can flip through the pages while in the lift and get all the news and the juice and if you are game for it then you can chew it like gum. Use of newsprint will become defunct after a sustained campaign against saving the trees while destroying the woods. Newspaper will be made of polymers just like bubble gum and will come in different flavours. And virtually being a mini when compared to our broad sheets, Twitter language will dominate the pages. So, like someone reduced Coleridge’s Rime of the Ancient Mariner to “Old salt, told tale/ Of bird round his neck, again and again” we will have condensed news. It will be known as the power of 140.
TH: If one can write in tweets, why should the number of followers influence anyone’s appointment?
SE: It proves you are popular. So if you have 30 million followers you are one up over the sod who has only a million. The future journalist will be known by his or her followers. So the Rajdeep Sardesais , Barkha Dutts, Vinod Mehtas, Arnab Goswamis and MJ Akbars of 2060 will be classified as 2 million, five million, 60 million and 300 billion (followers on Neptune and Pluto included). You may wonder how they will acquire such a huge fan base. They will simply buy fake fans—something that our Bollywood stars and politicians are already doing. Let me tell you, the fake fans and followers industry will be huge–the next big thing after carbon credits—and anyone without a healthy following will be looked down upon.
TH: How will all this influence journalism?
SE: Well, for starters netas won’t speak to a journalist who has, say, a few thousand followers on Twitter or a hundred fans on Facebook. Then tweets archived will have to be referred to while writing 140 character edits. But more importantly you will only be upwardly mobile if you tweet regularly and have a few million following you. In terms of language you will have new tweety expressions like tweet nothings, so intweetive, twitter twatter and intweetable. The world in short will be a big tweet.
TH: Swamiji, what will be your advice to future journalists?
SE: Well, my advice will be first to parents. If you think your kid is likely to be a journalist (scribbling on walls is a sure sign) then open Twitter and Facebook accounts for him or her. Start tweeting and posting ASAP baby talk—boo..boo..baa and the like. Once you get cracking, you can buy fans and followers. Purchase them cheap today and even if your child does not like the media as a profession when he grows up he can trade his fake fans for big bucks on the Twitter exchange...
(Swamiji’s next peep into the media will be in July 2018. By then he hopes to master the art of speaking in Twitter lingo. Every question, he says, will have a 140 character answer. However, he promises no character assassination.)