Criticles

NDTV Girl Asks – Twitter Answers With Sexist Humour

Twitter has a field day responding to question about inclusive growth.

WrittenBy:Mahima Singh
Date:
Article image

Since we believe in making things easy for our readers and viewers, here is the latest thing that broke the Internet (in India, at least).

subscription-appeal-image

Support Independent Media

The media must be free and fair, uninfluenced by corporate or state interests. That's why you, the public, need to pay to keep news free.

Contribute

So this young girl studying Political Science tells the world what probably every Adarsh Liberal in the country has been thinking. That there has been a disturbing increase in communal tension and patriarchal tendencies after the new government came to power in our country. She then asks Christine Lagarde, managing director, International Monetary Fund, if she thinks that the projected economic growth of 7.5 per cent will be inclusive or concentrated to the “Hindu male population”. Then, this happened:

imageby :

 NDTV girl said what?!

After this perfectly meme-worthy face, Lagarde goes on to explain the meaning of inclusive growth: “There should be no exclusion and no reservation or capture of the output by a particular group of people – be they of one particular gender, one particular race or one particular religion. Inclusiveness for good growth means everybody.”

For some reason, anchor Prannoy Roy was really thrilled with the question and egged the student on to ask a follow-up question. The girl didn’t, but that didn’t stop Twitter from taking this to the next level.

The collective creative intelligence of the Internet set to work within minutes of the incident with memes and tweets ending up making #NDTVGirlAsks trend the hell out of Twitter. Of course, the fact that NDTV uploaded the girl’s question and Lagarde’s answer as a separate video helped.

Since this is the Internet we are talking about, how can we leave out all the theories (conspiracy or otherwise) that emerged from the hashtag and all the possible damage it could do to the “Delhi liberal” image.

It’s a plant .

It turns out that people think the question was scripted and handed to the girl. To be honest, I have seen that happen a lot myself. Questions being distributed among the “hey-you-look-good-on-camera” people so that we come off as a well-informed, inquisitive and good-looking crowd. So, may be that happened or may be not. After all, NDTV is the Adarsh Liberal’s staple afternoon news source.

OMG she is that girl from that thing.

Then came the question of her identity. Who is this NDTV girl? Twitter was on the case.

Does no one see the resemblance! Come on people, both of them have two eyes, a nose, one mouth and black hair. They have to be the same person. Does she work for NDTV or study at Delhi University? Is she even a girl? Is her hair really black? Are we really considering this? Hey, let’s not forget, she could also be Christian.

Not all reactions were humorous, though. Twitter Bhakts slammed her for being stupid, coating the abuse with abundant amounts of sexism and misogyny (as is often the case on Twitter).


But that’s what Twitter is: a platform of expression. All kinds of it. With all the hate and name calling we can be sure that Twitter is three tweets away from trending #JeSuisNDTVGirl

imageby :

Because deep down we all want to smile like that

The author can be contacted on Twitter @amiham_singh
subscription-appeal-image

Power NL-TNM Election Fund

General elections are around the corner, and Newslaundry and The News Minute have ambitious plans together to focus on the issues that really matter to the voter. From political funding to battleground states, media coverage to 10 years of Modi, choose a project you would like to support and power our journalism.

Ground reportage is central to public interest journalism. Only readers like you can make it possible. Will you?

Support now

You may also like