Are you team Friends, or…
What should I quote from present times because apparently I am unable to distil something we all do or watch with unity, except for scrolling reels and sharing memes, that too with centralised content. I remember my childhood when my brother and I used to stay up late till 12 at night to watch sitcoms; ‘Suite Life of Karan and Kabir,’ followed by ‘Shake it up’ aired on Disney Channel. This is not it; after that, early in the morning around 07:00 a.m., we were to watch ‘Dragon Tales,’ ‘Oswald,’ ‘Looney Tunes,’ and many more. Throughout the day, the room was reserved for ‘Best of Luck Nikki,’ ‘CID,’ and everyone’s favourite ‘Doraemon.’
It became a kind of ritual to discuss these shows with friends in school, and it was fun seeing how we all had shared interests and points of view about a thing. With the change in time and rise of technology came isolation and individualism. Slowly but steadily, the idea of monoculture started to erode.
Let’s go back to the time when Facebook and Instagram took over our social lives and centred it on these mere applications. Wherever we go, whatever we eat, there has to be a story or post about it just to let others invade our privacy in the name of socialising. In the means of communication, these are the most feasible tools; no matter how far a person lives, he is just a text away from getting connected to you.
However, this connection has made a gap between us and the people around us whom we do not have to text to talk to. We have become strangers despite living under the same roof, or meeting daily at work or study. We have scheduled and designed our lives on social media rather than in real time. We no longer sit together to watch the Cricket World Cup or the famous FIFA World Cup, and prefer watching it on our phones and laptops separately. I remember whenever there was a cricket match between Pakistan and India, our entire family used to sit in the TV lounge and watch it enthusiastically. Now, I must say that this spark has died, as we are no longer interested or have become busier in our lives. It is like when we stop watering a flower; it dies.
By this I mean, we started focusing on ourselves to the point that we lost the mutual connections and interests with our loved ones, or the community as a whole. In every era, there was something we all used to do or watch together. We would know what is trending in fashion, dramas, movies, politics, international propaganda, and whatnot. But now it has become way more difficult to stay in touch with everything because of the death of monoculture.
We have become by-products of globalisation and consumerism in the name of utopia. This is not progress as a nation where we cannot laugh at the same commercials, understand the references from the movies and books, and where marketing strategy cannot be designed around the audience now, because we do not know what people are seeking to watch. Everyone has acquired different interests and tastes, diminishing shared cultural preferences.
We will be living in the same room, sharing seats on a bus or a train, unaware of what people next to us are watching or laughing about. Something so bizarre about it is that we judge others for being unaware of something we like when we tell them. This is like imposing our interests on someone or making them feel left out. During COVID, TikTok took over the world in setting social media trends. A whole lot were busy dancing and lip-syncing to songs, while others were making vlogs of what they do in a day. Getting famous from a short clip was what was happening at that time. Instead of spending time with our family and getting closer to them, we started getting in touch with strangers online. We stopped playing cricket, football, and badminton with our friends just to play PUBG on our mobile.
We never noticed how and when the room that used to be full of laughter and gossip went quiet. Now, in every corner, we will see children holding tablets, phones and controllers playing PlayStation. No single trend is followed, as everyone has their own style. This is the decline of the culture and traditions our ancestors set because the 21st century is focused on creating new things, even if it demands disconnection.