Why are we upset that Poonam Pandey performed a death stunt to raise awareness about cervical cancer?
We ordinary people live off the attention we receive on social media.
We “mainstream media” prefer to pay more attention to various social media platforms instead of writing articles with our feet on the ground. It’s cheap. Simple.
We are influencers who have drawn attention to our business model.
All this attention surrounding Poonam Pandey’s death is only irritating us. Because “we,” the wise, all-knowing denizens of the digital universe, will be faced with the possibility of our fallibility. We are so gullible. And when we are deceived, we don’t like it. And when we are fooled by someone who is lower on our imaginary hierarchy, such as an intellectual, a popular person, or a socialite, we are even more upset because it is also humiliating.
Poonam Pandey and the team behind the rumors of her death, which turned out to be false the next day, deserve praise for leveraging the unique affordances of social media to their advantage. Affordance is his 1979 concept that defines the possibilities afforded by elements of a particular environment or setting. The affordance at issue here is caution.
Social movements grow by gaining attention. Scholars such as William A. Gamson and Gadi Wolfsfeld view media and movements as “interacting systems.” Simply put, media attention or lack of attention to a movement is, on the one hand, informed by bias, but on the other hand, it also shapes the movement. Poonam Pandey knows this all too well. She is used to being noticed and she feels no shame in using it. She Pandey also recognizes that media attention is temporary. It’s here today and gone tomorrow. Like media scholars, she understands the “cascading” nature of media attention. She knows that the media competes fiercely for “breaking news” stories to survive in the capitalist system. The break is followed by a “hot” take. Search engines will keep keywords popular until the next “break”.
Any news is good news. It’s not just because of the recession that bad press becomes especially good press. Negative representation by one media outlet often provokes ideologically opposed media outlets to go all-out defensive in an attempt to “counter”.
We’ve all seen it all. Poonam Pandey decided to put it to good use. Many have accused her of using her cancer for self-promotion. seriously? X and her Instagram each have her over 1 million followers, so self-promotion is probably not what she’s aiming for. The shock value of this “stunt” is very high, so the payoff for self-promotion is very low.
Pandey has pulled off a Brechtian agitprop. For a while, her actions attracted attention as the media constantly focused attention on her. There is a get rich process at work here too. The news of her death from cervical cancer certainly influenced the amount of searches for cervical cancer on the internet. Her big announcement about the preventability of cervical cancer is also correct.
To many, Mr. Pandey’s campaign may seem out of place. However, preference criteria are a characteristic of hierarchical structures. Despite claims of democratization, social media is highly stratified with distinct elites. Media and social media platforms are social systems, and all interactions here must be viewed through economic, political, and cultural lenses. Everyone has different tastes and there is no absolutism around them. As far as the issue of trivializing a deadly disease is concerned, there is likely to be an endless debate about the different licenses used by different people on a daily basis on the media and social media platforms.
Pandey has come under fire in the past for trying to attract attention. The very irony of this is implicit in the literary definition of the term FLAK. This German word is part of the military vocabulary of World War II and is an abbreviation for Fliegerabwehrkanone. Literally means “airplane repellent gun”, that is, an anti-aircraft gun. The Nazis popularized the use of the term flak. Therefore, the person receiving the attack and the person giving the attack are playing the same game. Poonam Pandey is no worse than those who attack her on social media platforms. Perhaps many of us are just jealous of what she has and we don’t.
To be clear, this essay is not an attack or defense of Poonam Pandey and her ‘stunts’. It’s about identifying them in context, evaluating them, and drawing lessons from that evaluation. Without such an evaluation, the cycle of mere acts and outrages does nothing and we circle around the prickly pear cactus. Another act, another outrage.
in lewis carroll through the mirrorAlice is told by the Red Queen, “You know, you have to run as fast as you can to stay in the same place.”
(Nishta Gautam is a writer and academic based in Delhi.)
Disclaimer: These are the author’s personal opinions.