Idle commentary on humanity or How We’re Pavloved into Loving the Absurd

So, I saw this video about a guy playing a piano, when a woman walks in to sing. The piano man (let’s call him that and it has nothing to do with the song) looks at the woman, shakes his hand in abject disappointment and leaves abruptly leaving the woman surprised—embarrassed even—and gingerly walk off, looking around in disbelief. Even the spectators are captured on the hidden camera, showed shock on their faces. It then pans out into a funny-themed music one generally applies for situations where one if being absurdly goofy. This then continues on to the next hapless victim who are all women in the video. As I was watching it, I could feel a laugh bubble up looking at all the shocked faces, knowing full well this was a joke, and that the women would eventually be told there is a hidden camera somewhere, making them eventually laugh at the horrible feeling that they just went through totally ridiculous. The full video was never shown, and so I don’t really know if this indeed happened.

I started thinking to myself: what if videography technology never existed? Then such idiots of a piano-men would not exist going around disappointing women and wasting our time and attention when instead we could be doing something more important like sex and procreation to keep the social security, the pension funds or whatever it is in various countries up and running OR such idiots of a piano-men would be absolutely ridiculed, beaten up, canceled, ignored, ostracized—you name it. But such a technology exists now, and the morality of this action is called to question. If the video was indeed shown to the woman, then its morality is deemed more palpable, show it the entire world on social media and its considered the content of a humble prankster belonging to the upper echelons of social media’s junk content. Unless... unless it really happens to you! Just think for a moment that you were that woman who starts off singing only to be looked upon with a dismissive sigh and left humiliated while the idiot of a piano man walks off. That feeling at that moment is very real till the moment you are just a guinea pig in all this staged drama.

One would say this is all fine, but as a society, I can’t seem to shirk off this feeling that we are all devolving into callous beings trampling on other people’s feelings as some sort of joke to garner some views, and the instant we are told that this was all on camera, we are supposed to feel like this is okay—a non-issue. I remember another YouTube short I had seen where a man dressed up as a tree jump-scares a woman, and this heavy-set woman goes completely berserk, screaming and swinging her purse on the poor sod who is holding on for dear life, the husband desperately trying to rein her in, whilst onlookers stop to stare. Some start to laugh at this whole fiasco—some wondering what befuddling barnacles is wrong with the woman going on an offensive pummeling of this “poor” soul whose only crime was to create a sneaky video as a joke, post it on YouTube or Insta, get some likes and some subscribers. Poor soul, indeed. We are left to wonder if this angry, wild woman can’t even take a joke. Sheesh, grow a sense of humor, woman would probably be all the commentary in the comment section! Under typical circumstances, she would probably be just going on about her life, simply enjoying her day until this green leafy clown showed up.

Now, if the whole thing is staged with the woman faking the embarrassment too (very well done if I may say!) in the video mentioned earlier, I lament at what humans think is entertainment and just feel very sorry for the folks emotionally investing in such content, leaving the viewers always wondering if this is real or not. They not only take away your attention but also emotionally suck you dry. I remember when I was reading posts on Reddit such as r/AmITheAsshole, r/India, r/Advice and being emotionally invested in the well-being of the people—sometimes commenting, sometimes passively upvoting suggestions and solid advice—only to be told later that half the posts are fake. I was 35. It was my first taste of how fake the internet can be, leaving me in a mild shock and bit dejected that folks just scroll through, giving their time and effort into answering those questions. I dread the moment and perhaps we are already in the moment when we can’t differentiate between the real and the fake, when all the real voices are going to be drowned in an ocean of fake click-baits. Already some incorrigible sections of humanity take a look at Superman or Shakti man and think even they can fly (bless their souls wherever they are), but it’s becoming hard, more or less, to determine what’s fake and what’s not, and the whole internet is just a giant cauldron of fake mess.

Footnote: Just thought that if LLMs are being used to create content that is junk and you have LLMs training on that junk content, I wonder if the eventual outputs are all going to be junk. Well, perhaps a discussion for another day.