What's seen is sold! - Daily Post Epaper -13/05/2015 by Neha V, Chandigarh

My article in today's Daily Post India, 13/05/2015

Pour-in some feedback please!

What is seen is sold!

Not anymore are we bugged by those overwhelmed tourists while travelling who will come requesting us to capture their family picture in their old –fashioned cameras; the only click that used to endorse the family outing. The days, when rugged husbands armed with shutterbugs yearned for a chance to pose with their coy wives, have become a rare sight now. Back then, none believed in the ‘Tamashaa’ of clicking pictures till the film roll went bone-tired. The ritual to date, sign and scribble on pictures to store them as a memoir are things of the past. The times when our Bed boxes, cupboards and wooden shelves babbled and unveiled long-lost and forgotten family pictures; framed, preserved and ornamented. 

Quite unlike the times of today! Today’s commercial and highly social times believe in outrunning every trend, vogue and rage before it becomes one. Among many other causes lie widely known and well accepted popularity of Social media. People from all walks of life; be it students, young, adults, elderly, service class, entrepreneurs, house-wives, or any Page 3 personality; all seem to be swept away with the fever of posting anything to everything on Social media. For them, words like comments, likes, tags, hashtags work as catalysts that keep them grounded yet going.

Feeling low? Post a sob story! Feeling happy? Boast your happiness. Had a break-up? Hurl abuses online. Feeling lonely? Add a few mutual friends. Your pet sneezed? Post it. Your maid didn’t turn up? Tag her in a status. You scored well? Here goes your mark sheet online! That’s all it takes to keep sailing and soaring the current times. An ongoing process right from waking up till the time one hits the bed; with every breath and every step. We feel bound, obliged, obligated to click, share, reply, click, share, and reply to such chain series leading to unending chain reactions.

Among all these, the crown of the tide goes to posting a ‘Selfie’. Technically, it is a process that includes Posing, clicking, editing, customizing, photo-shopping, and filtering and hence posting the ‘End-result’ online for others to admire. The effort goes on undisputedly, peacefully and unruffled. They exist everywhere; in Gym, in libraries, Cafeterias, canteens, shopping malls, movie theatres, swimming pool, functions, celebrations, funerals and where not!  

Having said that, I wish to share what one of my friends (A fanatical Gym owner) shared with me recently. Shell shocked and astounded, my friend screeched how an overweight girl in her gym had the audacity to ask her to spare a separate ‘Selfie-corner or Photo booth’ in the Gym premises to facilitate proud members’ hard work. The member rationalized everything ranging from increased levels of health-consciousness, madness around looking good online to treating ‘the initiative’ as a catalyst for the members to work harder.

Following this, my friend, indignant and displeased at ‘Such’ a suggestion, coming from an intermittent and rotund member, planned not to invest in coming year in gym weights, iron bars, yoga mats, but instead! After all, what is seen is sold!