15 Tweets of Fame

While on a tweeting spree, a few days back I came across this post which caught my attention:

@CelebrityUnderCover: Being a celebrity ain't fun no more without wading through the heaps of fan mail piling at the doorstep.  : (

(All names have been changed to protect their celebritydom!)

Do you remember your favorite boy band from the 90s? ( I know you had one!) Due to a combination of inter-stellar forces (and some good programming by MTV) we would be ecstatic if our favorite songs were played! Celebrity interviews ( especially the Boy Band kind) were a rare visual treat!We would idolize them and their pictures were splattered across our walls. Original CDs and movies were our gateway to engage with them. Not to forget, the fan mail written painstakingly on fancy paper!

But do celebrities still retain that touch of star dust? Has social media stripped them of their perceived "perfectness" and made them too accessible and too real for their own good?
The twitter universe is abuzz with celebrities tweeting about everything right from the latest misadventures of their pets to what they had for lunch, making them sound..er..surprisingly like the guys-next-door.

Social media has definitely given celebrities the key to share their musings with their followers and detesters alike,  but does that take away from their allure of being "out of reach"? Sure they post about attending the Oscars and wearing sheer Victoria Beckham gowns, while ordinary mortals like us are content attending the barbecue dinner in the neighborhood wearing faded jeans.By giving us a constant peek into their lives and letting us realize that how "normal" (@justinbieber tweeting about his workout sessions and  @serenawilliams about her breakfast preferences)they can be, they're permitting to let some of the mystique surrounding celebrity fade away.

I remember my Granny being charmed by Jacqueline Kennedy as the First Lady and had even written to her. Wonder of wonders, a White House correspondent had ACTUALLY responded with a courteous letter signed by Mrs. Kennedy. Cut to present. Do you think Mrs. Obama retweet would have the same enduring value?

 

Granny 2.0

Granny - the word conjures up images of a genteel, fragile creature peacefully knitting sweaters for her great-grandchildren while savoring chamomile tea. They seem to be detached from the world of chaos and social networking which plague us ordinary folk. 

Or, are they?

My Granny, for her 77th birthday didn't ask for a cashmere shawl or even a diamond-encrusted watch. Grandmotherly-stuff didn't even figure in her wish list! Her heart was set on, wonder of wonders, acquiring the newest (and the most promising) member of the Nokia Family - The Lumia 800!

My folks were apprehensive of about how phone-savvy she is, but she couldn't stop gushing about the Windows operating platform (I though the only time Grandmas mentioned windows was when they wanted the curtains pulled!) and it's sleek design.

 We eventually gave in, while at the same time being prepared for hour long phone tutorials with her. Surprisingly, she picked up the nuances of using the phone on her own and would only talk about it when she wanted to share a cool app download!

This was however, just an indication of things to come. She has managed to get a Facebook profile created for herself (by generously bribing my sibling of course!) and has jumped on to the social networking bandwagon head on!


This made me thinking of how the ubiquity of social networking has managed to appeal to an older audience as well. Though they may not care much about tweeting the details of their latest culinary delight or their favorite soap opera, it does provide them with a sense of being "connected." Wading through a mesh of status updates and tweets is a bit of a chore for them, so they stick to the basics - flipping through pictures of their near and dear ones and pressing the Like button a little too generously.


Though they cannot be accused of the miniscule attention spans of the current crop, social networking does give them a peek into the lives of their extended family, and a feeling of gaining access to this enigma called technology.


Though, it's a long time before your grandparents make you go kaput in a game of Texas hold'em poker, social networking has managed to get them hooked and knitting needles have been abandoned for the time being!

Oh, and did I tell you what's on my Granny's wish list for her 78th - Why an iPad, of course!





 

To Pin or Not to Pin

Any girl (and guys if they admit it) worth her weight in credit cards will admit the guilty pleasure of window shopping..everything provides a tantalizing view....just enough to stir your purse strings but not enough to make you actually reach for that safely tucked away roll of cash.

 This simple act of material voyeurism has been known to provide countless hours of idle pleasure, and now there's a way of engaging in it without even reaching for our dainty purses. It's a well-stacked website called pinterest tucked away in the labyrinths of the virtual world.

For the uninitiated, pinterest is an online pinboard. Remember the staid brown pinboards that we would use to pin everything from to-do lists, vacation pics, trinkets and our bucket lists of course! With pinterest you can pin virtually (pun intended!) anything and get like-minded (or despise- minded) people to view it. 

 I've seen pictures ("pins" if you will) of everything - from iPhone apps-shaped-cookies (no kidding!) to the house -I've-always-wanted-to-have-but-never-thought-existed. Through your own virtual pinboard you can share your tastes on everything - from shoes to music with just about anyone.

 Some people have taken it a step further and have actually planned their weddings and vacations using pinterest. To give you an example, say our hypothetical bride Kate is getting married next week (time to press the panic button!) and can't decide whether a pink or a vanilla satin rose would complement her outfit, what does she do? Pin it of course! Based on the number of "repins" and the ubiquitous "likes" - voila, she's got her choice made!

What's sets Pinterest apart in this wave of Facebook and Twitter loyalists, is the steady but quite popularity that it has gained. According to online sources, it's driving more traffic than Google+, YouTube and LinkedIn combined! Granted that pretty little trinkets and rainbow layered cakes are likely going to melt little-girly hearts only but pinterest has also gone a step further and opened the doors to visual micro blogging!

 With our constantly decreasing attention spans, traditional blogs gave way to the concise-all-encompassing status message, but honestly who really wants to do all that reading in a doughnut break during work? pinterest opens the floodgates to visual gratification by providing a snapshot of what trend setters, bloggers (and perhaps even stalkers) really dig. Loyalists manage to provide a snapshot of themselves by pinning just about anything that gets their eyeballs rolling!

As the visual medium becomes the new currency for carrying on conversations (exactly how many hours in a day do women spend talking about THAT colour and men about a sleek design?) visual blogging might gain credence as a quick way of expressing our tastes, passions and perhaps even social issues (I can recall more TIME magazine war photographs stirring my heart than any article ever could). 

 With this mode of communication and the website capturing popular imagination, starting a visual conversation in real time might just be a pin away!

The Stereotyped-but-Mystified Indian Theory

Big Bang Theory is undoubtedly one of my favourite comedic shows. My evenings come alive with the vagaries and eccentricities of the brilliant-yet-awkward characters of Sheldon, Howard and Leonard. 


Wait a minute, am I forgetting someone?


Let me guess, a certain caramel-coloured character (as he's often referred to in the show) who plays right into Indian stereotypes?


Kunal Nayyar aka Raj Koothrappali is a treat for prime-time television producers. He can be molded as easily as dough to depict Indian stereotypes. So, naturally being an "outsider" he "dumbs down" for the role, is a sidekick to another sidekick (Howard) and relies on kismet (and his Ma's advice) rather than his own charm to find himself a girl.

Let me admit that I chuckle as much as anyone when he references non-existent Hindu laws which would doom his sister to repent in the afterlife for sleeping with Leonard, but the writers have definitely gone overboard with the "Indianization" of his character. It seems to be the raison d'etre for his appearance in the show. (Notice how there's more to Howard than his Jewish lineage though - his feat in designing an ergonomic toilet seat for the International Space Shuttle for example)


American-Indians/British-Indians seem to derive their sense of identity from their mixed heritage. Though, it does add a certain flair to the storyline, the ethnics traits seem to often overshadow the individuality of their characters.

Kunal Nayyar in a recent appearance at the Jimmy Kimmel Show spoke about how he encounters ELEPHANTS while crossing roads in New Delhi! Is it me or is it a term of endearment for corpulent Indians crossing a busy road in the Capital? While I understand his quest for celebrity by harping on the idiosyncrasies of India, that comment was a bit of a stretch. Don't take my word for it, watch it right here: 

 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PPJgWgAg6Ps&feature=related 

Moving on to the other side of the Atlantic, a lead character of the British sitcom Goodness Gracious Me even went as far as to prove that Santa Claus is indeed Indian because he's got a "big beard, huge belly and a terrible suit". It got the British ho-hoing all right.

In another episode wherein one of the characters marries a British woman, she's shown as having adapted to the "Indian mannerisms" which by default make her louder and her English broken. To get the full drift of what I'm talking about, have a quick look at this one:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rM9__IGZ9Ow&feature=related

I spent the last summer in the States and found that the typical American DOES have a healthy level of curiosity about the Indian Way of Things and these shows offer a distorted notion which often prevents them from moving beyond these depictions.

While I agree that these shows wouldn't garner their fair share of snorts and giggles sans these stereotyped throwbacks but isn't it time that they showed us to be a little more than (to quote the Big Bang Theory) "brown coffee with extra sugar?" 

 

About Culture Curry

Stirring, frothing and steadily brewing - no am not talking about my mom's latest culinary delight being whipped in the kitchen, but the fabric that ties us oh-so-social beings together. 

Like It. Despise It. Ignore It. Snore-through-It. You sure can't be indifferent to it. Social critics have added a plethora of adjectives like "pop", "post-modern" and Dave-knows-what before it. However, this potboiler called culture lets of enough steam to tantalize everyone's senses.

So, what exactly does Culture Curry have anything to do with it? 

Being associated with the marketing & advertising industry, culture is the essential ingredient for our creative concoctions. It's what we mesh with the product promise to create tantalizing communication which whets our audience's appetite (or at least we hope so!)

This blog is going to be about my cultural musings, sometimes based on what I'm currently researching or just a passing thought. Please feel free to comment, approve or rebut and sprinkle your own views on my posts.

So, dig in!