Twittering Scandals

(Photo Source: Google)


It must have been an awkward situation when Ms. Sonia Gandhi heard that she and her son were referred to as ‘cows’ by a minister from her own party. On the one hand, party workers, often before elections, usually worship Sonia Gandhi’s posters, and on the other hand, the Minister of State for External Affairs, Sashi Tharoor mocks her on Twitter. She wouldn’t have minded the same from the Saffron Brigade – after all, she is the Holy Cow!

Almost a month ago, External Affairs Minister S M Krishna and his deputy Shashi Tharoor were asked to vacate their five-star hotel accommodation after Congress President Sonia Gandhi intervened and decided that Ministers in the government for the ‘aam janta‘(common man) must renounce such luxuries. To set an example for the Ministers, Ms. Gandhi and her son Rahul Gandhi, on different occasions, have traveled in second class train compartments.

Vis-à-vis this development, the conversation on Twitter between Tharoor and a journalist went as follows:

Kanchan Gupta: Tell us Minister, next time you travel to Kerala, will it be cattle class?
Shashi Tharoor replied: absolutely, in cattle class out of solidarity with all our holy cows.

When the media spotted this exchange on the social networking site, word spread like wildfire - the Tharoor-Twitter saga was front page news! Sashi Tharoor almost had to resign for his ‘irresponsible act’ of dishonoring the princip(al)le of the Congress Party

For many Web 2.0 users, social networking sites and blogs are their personal spaces; most often, they also become a personal venting space for the whole world to see.
Twitter, the microblogging site which has created a new online frenzy, helping celebrities save big ‘moolah’ in publicity expenses, has become the ‘land of controversies’.

Recently, Meghan McCain, the 24 year-old-daughter of former Republican presidential candidate John McCain, was ‘hurt’ because of Twitter. Her promiscuous and revealing photograph on ‘Twitpic’ has landed her in big trouble. This picture found the top spot on various blogs and tweets, and she was bad mouthed all over the Web. The controversial photograph even made it made it to prime time on CNN

Demi Moores’s 27-year-old husband, Ashton Kutcher, had to apologize for the obnoxious comments he made about his neighbor on Twitter. You can’t really blame him, it is human to get annoyed if your neighbor has a better job than you do.

These Twitter controversies are propelled way out of proportion by the other media that thrive on celebrity scandals. The numbers of Sashi Tharoor’s followers on Twitter have multiplied since the Twitter drama. But the latest fans were disappointed because his tweeting frequency has seen a major drop. The urbane politician, who used to tweet at least thrice a day earlier, now tweets only once in three days post-controversy. Holy Cow!

Miss McCain who was virtually unknown earlier, has now become famous all over the internet, so much so that the first three pages of a Google search on ‘Twitter controversies’ are dedicated to her.

While Tharoor referred to two of his fellow party members as cows, Aamir Khan called his rival Shahrukh Khan a dog who licked his feet. He went on saying on his blog “Shahrukh is licking my feet and I am feeding him biscuits every now and then. What more can I ask for...Shahrukh smells too much, I think he needs a bath.”

(Photo Source: Google)


Though SRK didn’t seem to bother about the post, the 932 comments on the post said it all. After the media started its usual chorus, blowing the issue completely out of proportion, Aamir offered his justification on the very same post. He cleared up the issue by admitting that he had bought a new house and that the dog that came with it was named Shahrukh Khan. However, not every scandal is resolved so easily.

Slumdog Millionaire brought glory to India - so said Anil Kapoor, but Amitabh Bachchan on his blog had openly showed his displeasure regarding the portrayal of India in the film. In fact, it was after Amitabh Bachchan’s reaction that many bloggers and critics went beyond the commotion and fanfare to criticize the movie. They later claimed that better movies were made on India.

If you are a celebrity, it takes just a blog or an innocent tweet to bring you a whole new order of publicity. The gossip hungry media will take care of the rest!