Why do we tend to find entertainment in ridiculing? The question prompted me to write this blog in curious case series
Shark Tank India came as a welcome change to the Indian television landscape flooded with daily soaps and reality talent shows. One peculiar observation I want to share is when I saw people relishing and rejoicing over humiliating feedback given to some contestants. People are watching in loop those sections of episodes wherein some participants were badly rebuked to the point of them becoming butt of jokes. One of the sharks particularly has been quite blunt in giving critical feedback which often makes feedback look like humiliation of the aspirant when seen on TV. Not sure how much editing has been involved in this but the least broadcasters could have done is to appropriately trim the negative feedback cases.
Coming to the audience, what looks unfathomable to me is people going crazy over it. People are feasting over it like they do on "masala" content of other shows. Masses still have affinity to seek so called entertainment in anything and everything even if it comes at the cost of mocking an aspirational mind. To me, its deep mental sickness. Alas, if people could come over this obsession for entertainment which even goes on making them insensitive towards others.
Not the first time I have been confronted by this mentality. Repeated encounters with this mindset brought me to another observation which I see as one of the possible reasons. Menial Jobs!
80% of the Indian population is still in villages and barring a generation or two, most of them have lived their whole lives doing jobs involving physical toil to make their living. Exhausted to the core at the end of the day, all they need is simple and plain entertainment where, in the content they consume, defying laws of physics works but explaining them does not! For someone who does manual scavenging to make his living, a commercial movie showing the protagonist running faster than a motor vehicle works perfect but a movie like Interstellar expecting some mental exercise may not work at all. Someone actually working a menial job at cremation grounds may not like the idea of watching movies like "Masan" for entertainment. That's where commercial cinema wins. But the discussion here is not about cinema but the definition of entertainment.
Entertainment for most people means "no brainer" which usually also goes on to
"no pausing and reflection". For masses, the impulsiveness of breaking into inadvertent laughter upon seeing someone fall or being ridiculed shouldn't be questioned or challenged. Mocking near and dear one's or elders may not be right but it's absolutely alright to mock a stranger located miles away. A kid seeing people around him ridiculing others and getting entertained can never realize its gravity. That's where his definition of entertainment lies.
Doing menial jobs to make a living is not just under-utilization of precious human time or a matter of helplessness for people who don’t have an option, but it has a deep sociological impact. It controls our choices and hence behavioral tendencies. This runs much deeper and holds good even for a large portion of so called educated society. Moral of the story for me in the context is that as a society, we can never overcome fear of failure as long as we are ridiculing failures of others. Ridiculing others has an instant impact - instilling fear of failure in one's own mind. Subconsciously, you create a barrier for yourself that doesn't matter if we succeed less, ridicule shouldn't happen so better not try wherever there is a risk of humiliation.
I so wish we have right and quick progress in area of automation wherein such menial jobs can be outsourced to machines. This will eventually open doors for all humans to do better things in their lives which excites them in true sense or at least doesn’t frustrate them. Elimination of frustration and gradual introduction of better things will not just give happier lives to individuals, but would also improve the overall health of society.
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