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Poonam Pandey made a mockery of the cause she was apparently trying to support and trivialized the very real pain and grief that several individuals endure.
Yesterday we were hit with the news of the untimely passing away of 32-year-old Model, TV star and Influencer Poonam Pandey. While there were people who were skeptical over this information and sensed something fishy based on her visible health during her recent public appearances, some reserved judgement and were willing to give her the benefit of doubt. I was in the latter category, because I felt that maybe, just maybe, it’s not gotten so bad as to people faking death for the purpose of marketing.
So I got proven wrong today. Poonam Pandey is very much alive, kicking and rocking, leaving me seething honestly. Don’t get me wrong – it’s absolutely heartening to know that she is fine. But what bothers me is the exploitative use of faux demise to promote awareness about a significant health concern like cervical cancer. Here is the reel that she released today.
I despise even the ‘just for fun’ pranks done by people with their friends faking death/serious health conditions.
Death is a serious matter, and to manipulate it as a marketing strategy is an affront to the emotions and grieving processes of those who have experienced real loss. It undermines the gravity of death and erodes the trust between the public and those seeking to raise awareness. This tasteless, deeply disrespectful and ridiculous campaign supposedly designed using the ‘shock’ principle of marketing, totally fails to engage the public in any meaningful dialogue about the cause, and also risks desensitizing the public to genuine causes.
Most of us may have friends, family members or colleagues who have experienced the crushing reality of terminal illnesses. It takes a toll on the person battling the terror as well as the caregivers. When I saw her reel, I immediately thought about how they must have felt about this. It might have been so triggering to witness the extremely casual, gimmicky approach to a life-altering disease that tests the strength, patience and resilience of everyone involved.
The shock value of a campaign should never come at the expense of genuine emotions or ethical considerations. It’s not even well-intended as it’s pretty evident the purpose here was sensationalism and not attention, education or awareness.
What Poonam Pandey has done is undoubtedly highly problematic, but in the larger scheme of things, I hope this episode serves as a wakeup call and somewhere nudges all influencers, marketing firms, agencies and strategists to relook at the aspects of mindfulness, sensitivity, responsibility and accountability in marketing/PR. We are definitely losing balance in the pursuit of attention and numbers.
Multiple award winning blogger, influencer, author, multi-faceted entrepreneur, creative writing mentor, choreographer, social activist and a wanderer at heart read more...
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UP Boards Topper Prachi Nigam was trolled on social media for her facial hair; our obsession with appearance is harsh on young minds.
Prachi Nigam’s photo has been doing the rounds on social media for the right reasons. Well, scratch that- I wish the above statement were true. This 15-year-old girl should ideally be revelling in her spectacular achievement of scoring a whopping 98.05% and topping her tenth-grade boards. But oddly enough, along with her marks, it’s something else that garners more attention – her facial hair.
While the trolls are driving themselves giddy by mocking this girl who hasn’t even completed her school yet, the ones who are taking her side are going one step ahead – they are sharing her photoshopped pictures, sans the facial hair, looking nothing less than a celebrity with captions saying – “Prachi Nigam, ten years later”.
Doctors have already diagnosed her with PCOD in their comments, based on photographic evidence. While we have names for people shamed for their weight – body shaming, for their skin colour- racism, for their age- age shaming, for being a female- sexism, this category of shaming where one faces criticism for their appearance has no name. With that, it also has zero shame attached to it.
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