No beef with free speech, but no carte blanche either

The YouTuber-social media influencer’s crass statement breached even the ugly edges of the ‘dank humour’ genre that its aficionados accept.

On the day our prime minister was chairing the AI conference in Paris, a series of awkward explosions took place back home. The tawdry ‘Beer Biceps Bloke’, (hereafter referred to only as ‘B3B’ to reduce his airtime) gets arrest warrants for extreme vulgarity, and ugly incestuous sexuality on a podcast appearance. More was to follow. Within minutes, it also came to light, in social media, (as it always does) that even this so-called turd-level originality was just pathetic plagiarism at its worst.

What has conveniently been ignored in this brouhaha which involved multiple criminal cases being filed against B3B, in myriad inconvenient cities, is the fact that this was the work of one of India’s most fabled influencer heroes; and, need I add, the media man of the moment. The worthy had after all, done podcasts with Prime Minister Narendra Modi and some of his Cabinet colleagues in recent times. He was pampered, almost as if he’d been sanctified by Barron Trump himself, to give a legitimacy boost to our masters. 

The notorious Noida media, ever adept at instantaneous brown-nosing, attempted to bury this aspect, of course, but chose to discuss the trade-off loftily. The pretend standoff was portrayed as being between unfettered vulgarity versus the fulminating over State-led censorship. Yet the explosions in India were loud enough to have reverberated down the Sienne, into the portals in Paris, where the conference with Modi was being held.

The iron dome-like halo of State patronage seemingly provided covering fire for both audacity and effrontery of verbal vulgarity. That it was of the witless variety only B3B and his tribe thrive on, was one of the signs of our times. Yet, some substantive issues seemed to hang in the air. I’m glad to deconstruct a few. 

Dereliction of duty both by State

The extent to which such individuals were able to effectively use the very freedoms that they were trampolining to carve out crass spaces for themselves was significant. Even more, was the plight of millions of his hapless faithful (a number that image watchers like me can predict will only grow) held in thrall of social teenage ishtyle rebellion. 

The fact that they were willing to accept this disgusting dribble of diarrhoea and potty-mouth frivolity being dished out in ladles, was yet another sorry but rather serious observation, that must be recorded. In the future, these moments may well be seen as a pusillanimous dereliction of duty both by the State and by civilised society.

Can this issue be conflated with the regular gutter quality abuse and derision that channel anchors regularly heap on the Opposition, or on some communities, and even on some states? Actually almost. But not quite. The fact that the State chooses not to act against those anchors is part and parcel of the tacit legal support and unprecedented financial incentives that the industry of spreading hate currently thrives in.

Yet, conflating these two slimy strands is problematic. B3B’s defenders currently insist that the wild and putrid matter, in question, was only served up to subscribers behind a paywall. Apparently, we’re expected to take his shame-faced apologies seriously. We can’t forgive him because the brutish comments were made instantly available on social media, which almost anyone could access. Its very shock value was probably designed to attract eyeballs and crafted (no, copied) to trick more gullible subscribers into the loathsome stuff that generates revenue. 

‘Punishment’

So then, what should the ‘punishment’ be for this kind of violent trampling over well-understood societal norms? Not just because I am a free speech proponent, or because B3B is a baby-faced tyke, attempting to raise his income stream, my suggestion is that YouTube must be called on to suspend his channel as it has done merrily in the case of multiple news channels, and also thereafter ensure that he is not allowed to monetise his channel for a certain period of time, say at least a year. 

The ways of the social media jungle are unforgiving. In a year or even earlier, B3B may try and come back with even more foolish stuff that he’s shamelessly copied from elsewhere. But his world will have moved on. Funny animals will have feasted on his count-cadaver and stolen his audiences quite skilfully. Sponsors will also have fled quite certainly. 

B3B has, after all, breached even the ugly edges of the ‘dank humour’ genre that its aficionados accept. His being hung out to dry will teach others that while we have no beef with free speech, there are still some holy cows around us, that we love. 

(Dilip Cherian, founding partner of Perfect Relations, is a public affairs consultant and branding strategist. Twitter: @DILIPtheCHERIAN)

Disclaimer: The views expressed above are the author's own. They do not necessarily reflect the views of DH.