The latest season of 'Bigg Boss' allowed its viewers to watch the live feed from the house. This certainly proved what has been said about the show -- it may not be scripted, but is a highly edited show.
'Bigg Boss' is a total package -- a cringe-fest of a show, a case study on human behaviour, and a testing ground for the character and mental strength of (controversial) celebrities when made to live without facilities. And also, a weekly jukebox of songs from Salman Khan's movies. It's a weird show. Where else do you get to see people dancing to peppy songs as soon as they wake up? And where else do you get to see an elitist normalisation and trivialisation of every vice that is ravaging society?
There are as many abuses, fights, back-biting, and misogyny on Twitter as there are on the reality show. So much so that at a time when India is grieving the Hathras gangrape case, a nosediving economy, and the novel coronavirus, top trends on the micro-blogging website are ruled by 'Bigg Boss' and its current and former contestants.
Sidharth Shukla, the winner of the thirteenth and the most successful season of the show, has an army of fans -- famously known as SidHearts, and they make it a point to trend hashtags in his name almost every day. They function like a support system -- ready at all times to defend their idol even when he goes overboard with his aggression.
Another famous contestant is Shehnaaz Kaur Gill, also a close friend (or so we know) of Sidharth's. Her fans are named 'Shehnaazians' -- always up in arms against SidHearts. The reason is the tag 'SidNaaz'. Twitter users, as young as 12-13 and as old as 36-37, fight among each other to prove who -- between Sidharth and Shehnaaz -- "used" the other during the run of the show. Shehnaaz's fans call Sidharth by unspeakable names, and vice-versa -- this when the two stars have always vouched for their unbreakable bond and friendship.
Nobody wins -- not even SidNaazians. And precisely speaking, only Sidharth and Shehnaaz lose. Close on the heels of the TV TRP scam came another con job by the name of 'Bigg Boss 14'. Reports say the makers of the voyeuristic show wanted to encash on the popularity of the last season and called upon Shukla to add spice and 'everything nice' to the otherwise bland cast.
Season 11's runner up Hina Khan and Season 7 winner Gauahar Khan was also invited as what they called 'seniors'. And what transpired was surprising. Gauahar bonded with Sidharth -- the same man who she shaded on Twitter throughout Season 13. Sidharth and Hina fooled around giving rise to #SidHina.
The hashtag, however, died a tragic death towards the end of their stint when a video of Hina throwing a shade on Shuklajee went viral. Sidharth did not change at all though. He flirted like a pro, yelled at high decibels, and fought like his S13-self. His presence in Bigg Boss 14 brought TRPs to the early weeks of the run, and for the same numbers, the channel gave him an unceremonious farewell. Because of more eyeballs.
And more of this interest implies more wars on social media. That's exactly what happened. Several "blue ticks" on Twitter took a stand for the Khan duo when Rubina Dilaik, a contestant, shouted "woman power" on television -- on an issue that was not even remotely related to womanhood. They again sided with Hina and Gauahar when Bigg Boss declared Sidharth's team in one task had lost owing to "bahumat" (read: majority).
The truth is most of the faces on Twitter taking a stand for non-abusive and non-aggressive behaviour on a show that runs solely on these premises is more of a sham. And the faceless creatures on the Twitterverse giving celebrities lessons on how to conduct themselves on national television are no saints either.
The neutral audience for a show like 'Bigg Boss' is a myth, and what transpires on social media hence is a tug of war among the fans of celebrities participating in the show. There's no moral or ethical validation of any action happening either on the show or on social media.
It's a show -- and it has been repeated enough by host Salman Khan -- where a person needs to project himself with a certain value. It can be a Sidharth with his logical mind and aggression, or it can be a Shehnaaz with her realness and entertaining streak. It can be a Gauahar with her feisty spirit, or it can be a Vikas Gupta with his strategies. These values come at the cost of suppressing the better part of one's character -- Sidharth put down his fun and emotional side quite often and Gauahar her humane side in their respective seasons.
The projection of their flaws becomes the talking point of the town, and a silly PR battle ensues across the social media. Those who know, let's say, person A personally or from before side with him and bash all his opponents. The same goes for person B. War lines are drawn in full view -- on Twitter and Instagram -- through posts and videos. More serious issues like women empowerment, feminism, and chauvinism are taken into stride -- even when the whole show reeks of competition among all contestants, and not two genders.
Journalists -- with allegiances and alliances -- also become a party to the naysaying. Fans -- mostly between the age of 15 and 40 years -- get influenced, and thereby, lower the discourse of an inconsequential fight to abysmal depths of sometimes, slut-shaming and at times, body shaming. Age shaming also became a tool in the thirteenth season where Sidharth Shukla was many times told -- on the show and the social media -- he was 39.
The tragedy is the audience falls for it. How else can you explain the daily trends done in the name of these contestants? Their idols' battles become their own, and rigorous trends happen day and night. Of course, some, in several cases, are bots participating to increase the social media presence of an unknown face. But more than half are genuine audience -- made of flesh and blood who spend their valuable time in trends.
There's a separate queue of social media influencers too who through video reviews try and "influence" the perception of a larger lot. A few of them are former contestants of previous seasons -- and goes without saying, have been responsible for more than half of vices they claim to call out on their reviews.
The latest season of 'Bigg Boss' allowed its viewers to watch the live feed from the house. This certainly proved what has been said about the show -- it may not be scripted, but is a highly edited show. Season 14 had so many moments in the live feed -- like Sidharth fooling around -- that deserved to be telecast in the main episode. But nobody would have liked fun. Drama sells -- that is what 'Bigg Boss' is all about.
No celebrity or contestant -- living with unknown faces -- deserves to be judged based on 24-hour footage cut short into a one-hour episode. Should they be judged at all, it must be based on how real they are -- that's the real challenge. Judging them, shading them, or berating them for any other reason is just toxic positivity (read: shading and shaming -- of all kinds -- are as bad as abusing, maybe even worse).
'Bigg Boss' is a non-serious show about all non-serious issues in life -- a silly concoction of PR campaigns, fan wars, and human behaviour in quarantine (read: without mobile phones too) -- purely made to entertain the audience. It's time we stopped taking it so seriously.
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 "'Bigg Boss' shouldn't be taken seriously and here's why")
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