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Laughing out loud online

Photo: G.P. Sampath Kumar

Twitter ManiaAnonymous tweets taking potshots at celebrities add to ongoing trend of online humour

There was a flutter of activity on the social networking sites, when a reporter appealed to the government on his news website to convince Pamela Anderson to extend her stay instead of spending time confined in a house.

He asserted in his editorial that it was Pamela who united the country, as every Indian man loved her regardless of caste, creed or religion. The editorial was liked by many and was much debated. The reporter's name is Pagal Patrakar and the name of his news site is Faking News.

Online forum

As social networking and micro-blogging sites became a way of life, the online world has become a forum where opinions are being expressed and traded without any censorship and moral policing. Mostly, it is being done under the veneer of humour, be it slapstick or sardonic kind. Spoofs on news, pot-shots at celebrity goof-ups or a humorous take on current trends, everything fell under the radar of these bloggers and online humorists. “These humour sites and blogs provide a funny take on serious matters without sounding malicious,” says college student Sanjana Singh on the popularity and scope of online humour.

Websites like The Spoof, The Onion, and The Daily Mash have popularised the trend of satirical news in the west. Whether it's the story of the morbidly obese cat that died of a heart attack which was carried in The Daily Mash or the incidence of how a less than perfect pie has upset the nation reported by The Onion, no news is out of bounds and nothing that can't be made fun of. A recent crop of bloggers have also added to the online humour with their ready wit, brevity and observational comedy.

One of the bloggers, Arnab Ray in his blog Greatbong has dealt with the sociological impact of Bhojpuri movies to the scams that plague the country while Anand Ramachandran in his blog Son of Bosey talks about how Shah Rukh Khan popularised the name Aryan as opposed to the usual Jayant, Shankar or Sudheer, these bloggers have left no topic untouched. “These blogs have the kind of humour that youngsters relate to. The quick one-liners and ready come-backs make it an interesting read. Also, these blogs provide a great forum to exchange ideas even if they are in the form of jokes,” explains Anju Thomas whose favourite blog is the The Vigil Idiot which is a form of webcomic that gives a comical spoof on the latest movie releases.

Even the micro-blogging site has people under anonymous user IDs taking pot-shots at celebrities, like @buttupsajid who claims to be India's Untalented Git tweets ‘So Freida Pinto's not interested in Bollywood because she's only ‘interested in reality'. Well, here's reality, missy: you can't act.' “It's an equal platform where anybody can write or talk about anything or anyone. There are no holy cows, which is why the impact of this medium is also huge, especially among youngsters,” explains Vijay Kumar, a software professional.

Though some of the celebrities are not very sportive about being made fun of, some have learnt to take it with a pinch of salt after all, this medium gives no other choice.

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