Nusrat Jahan
Gone are the days when kids were all about having chitchats over tea and chanachur on their rooftops, and fights only broke out during games of monopoly. Nowadays, it is all about who has more likes on their Facebook display pictures or who has more followers on Instagram. The things that teens and tweens do these days, to become popular on social media is beyond appalling, and to some extent, even atrocious.
By now, most of the school and university-going people of Bangladesh has seen the viral video of a teenager called Xunaed beating up his once best friend and “bhai”, Nurullah.
The whole fight started because someone accused Nurullah for name-calling a girl Xunaed used to have feelings for. Fights over girls are not rare between teenagers, but the thing about this incident that got the entire youth population all worked up is the fact that this fight was filmed and then uploaded into Facebook.
People are suspecting that the reason behind uploading the video was to gain popularity. Many of Xunaed’s Facebook posts also seem to indicate his popularity-freak nature. Some even say that Xunaed was probably jealous of how popular Nurullah was in Facebook.
This incident was not the only incident that shocked everyone in Bangladesh most recently.
There was the case of Fareez Rahman, who was involved in a DUI, where he crashed into two rickshaws, leaving four people injured. He was also one of those kids who had a tendency to show off in social media. People who were following him on Instagram claimed that he often boasted about his life by uploading pictures of alcohol bottles and bundles of cash, and using captions like “My life> Your life”.
While Xunaed and Fareez were able to make it into the news, I am sure we all have someone like them in our very own Facebook friend lists. It is time we admit how obsession with popularity and status in social media is real, and how it is turning out to be a big problem.
Nusrat Jahan claims to be a majestic unicorn who loves singing, writing, listening to rock music, and fangirling over actors from various Korean dramas.