The Indian web is buzzing with the famous song, Tune Mere Jaana - Emptiness by a certain Rohan Rathore from IIT Guwahati who died of cancer after 15 days of recording the song for his lost love. Well the truth as most of you must have been skeptic about is that Rohan Rathore does not exist and this in all is just a great viral marketing example with over 340 versions for the music video of this song being uploaded on Youtube. There are fan clubs with 23K+ fans for Rohan Rathore.
Google Trends - Rohan Rathore
Finally, the truth behind Rohan Rathore is coming out. The original singer of the song, Gajender Verma, supposedly from Pakistan, has started claiming the copyrights and the song is being taken off, where ever possible. The truth is emerging and the story will die soon, but all in all a great marketing case. A good product with a good story made it really viral.
Amidst all this what worries me most is the powerful nature of web and that power landing in common man’s hand without there being any form of responsibility attached to it. The freedom of speech and the frictionless nature of spreading the speech without any check can be fatal at times.
Though the Tahrir Square story of Egypt is a great example of how the web can be used to turn down powers and how it can really make a great uniting platform in a truly democratic way. But on the other hand the Bhagat Singh twitter story is only a small example of what an irresponsible web can do.
What we forgot with time is that new media is still media. The same media which spread unverified news about Steve Jobs death which caused a stock market panic. Also, there is this false media that makes plagiarists like Ankit Fadia a hero. Though these bad things that ever happened till date because of web are small but with the penetration increasing exponentially, the next “wrong” news from the web will not have a small effect. This also raises a question that if its time that social media is regulated and there be some accountability to what you share/speak?
Fortunately web is made of you and me, who can keep our minds open and think twice before spreading what we don’t know about. Remember what you share is what defines you on the social web, so before jumping to instant gratification of sharing a story, do realise that your drop is contributing to make a larger lake, which you wouldn’t want to smell foul.
Lets heal the web and make it a better place, for you and for me. There are people dying at wrong dates and people dying who don’t exist.*
Enjoy this beautiful song from Rohan Rathore. Oops! Gajendra Verma. Bloody heck, just enjoy the song.
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