Skip to main content

Feeding Frenzy

Its been interesting reading all the opinion pieces and commentary on Musk buying Twitter. An assortment of pundits would have us take a guided trip through Musk's brain and unpack why he did this and what manner of terrible consequences it brings for us plebians. 

Seems to me that the answer is relatively simple - the man has more wealth and resources that most of us would even be able to fathom or compute. With that comes freedom and latitude to do things - some of which cost a bit of money (even on his scale) and provide for a bunch of entertainment. Its a lot like folks feeding koi in a pond or ducks in a lake. There could even be signage posted that such wanton feeding is unwelcome but the person armed with some stale bread feels in a position of power to rustle up a some creatures who were minding their own business, looking for their own food in ways that nature had intended. They have the means for this spot of entertainment and so they avail it.

The clamor that follows in the water and the the control the feeder has over the fed is exactly the kind of value Musk is deriving out of buying Twitter. Its just a matter of scale and there are consequences to actions - being it feeding ducks against the guidance of the parks and recreation personnel or monkeying around with a social media platform that is used worldwide and has been a key component of very large scale events. People will do what they want to do if they have the means to do it. Some will feed ducks and other will buy up Twitter - and a huge feeding frenzy will follow in the water on online.

The fact that the plebians have the choice to stay with or leave Twitter is not something that gets mentioned a lot - we are being treated much like those ducks in the pond who could in theory leave the pond to a place where they are left alone but don't, make the collective choice not to be fed stale bread by humans but don't. If we choose to behave brainless en-masse we probably deserve our fate. 

Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Part Liberated Woman

An expat desi friend and I were discussing what it means to return to India when you have cobbled together a life in a foreign country no matter how flawed and imperfect. We have both spent over a decade outside India and have kids who were born abroad and have spent very little time back home. Returning "home" is something a lot of new immigrants like L and myself think about. We want very much for that to be an option because a full assimilation into our country of domicile is likely never going to happen. L has visited India more often than I have and has a much better pulse on what's going on there. For me the strongest drag force working against my desire to return home is my experience of life as a woman in India. I neither want to live that suffocatingly sheltered existence myself nor subject J to it. The freedom, independence and safety I have had in here in suburban America was not even something I knew I could expect to have in India. I never knew what it felt t
111 comments
Read more

Cheese Making

I never fail to remind J that there is a time and place for everything. It is possibly the line she will remember me by when I am dead and gone given how frequently she hears it. Instead of having her breakfast she will break into a song and dance number from High School Musical well past eight on Monday morning. She will insist that I watch and applaud the performance instead of screaming at her to finish her milk and cereal. Her sense of occasion is seriously lacking but then so is mine. Consider for example, a person walks into the grocery store with the express purpose of buying detergent because they are fresh out of it and laundry is only half way done. However instead of heading straight for detergent, they wander over to the natural foods aisle and go berserk upon finding goat milk on sale for a dollar a gallon. They at once proceed to stock pile so they can turn it to huge quantities home-made feta cheese. That person would be me. It would not concern me in the least that I ha
5 comments
Read more

Under Advisement

Recently a desi dude who is more acquaintance less friend called to check in on me. Those who have read this blog before might know that such calls tend to make me anxious. Depending on how far back we go, there are sets of FAQs that I brace myself to answer. The trick is to be sufficiently evasive without being downright offensive - a fine balancing act given the provocative nature of questions involved. I look at these calls as opportunities for building patience and tolerance both of which I seriously lack. Basically, they are very desirous of finding out how I am doing in my personal and professional life to be sure that they have me correctly categorized and filed for future reference. The major buckets appear to be loser, struggling, average, arrived, superstar and uncategorizable. My goal needless to say, is to be in the last bucket - the unknown, unquantifiable and therefore uninteresting entity. Their aim is to pull me into something more tangible. So anyways, the dude in ques
6 comments
Read more