Tag: relationships

What’s the point of seasonal campaigns?

It’s rather an important day in the world of marketing. Major brands across the world convene months of planning and hard work while smaller brands collate rushed last-minute efforts to make a splash. The reason? Today is International Women’s Day.

Although most of the world is unaware of the importance of this specific day, India—where I live—is outspoken and even unashamed in promoting it. Of course, it’s convenient that it falls right within the much bigger topic of trend: Women’s History Month.

Workplaces, media outlets, social media channels are all sharing the spirit of encouraging and empowering women. And because most brands that do so, do so only to news jack and ride the trending wave, the hoopla often seems fake to me. As a result, those who’re sincere get bogged down by bright and flashy banners on social media that slap a woman’s face on it to gain viral status. As someone working in online marketing myself, I see a company’s desire for branding attention. As a passive internet observer, however, I find it annoying and futile to spend so much time and energy into one day.

No point of doing it just for the sake of doing it.

Regardless of my personal beliefs, though, brands will advocate women. Not that it’s wrong, but it feels so wrong to do it just for today rather than any other day.

It’s like the Me Too movement. Every waking day was painful as I saw revelations from so many folk I’d appreciated in the past. People for whom I wasted my time in theatres or on movie marathons were all abusers.

That’s when I realised how petty and insignificant those movies are. But that was all. About five months down the road now, not many care as much as they did then. They’ve moved on. Nothing about the Me Too movement or the cases against the celebrities came up in the Oscars. Everyone spoke to each other and of each other with fondness and compassion—where’s the fierce determination that had broken the internet a few months ago?

Poof.

Every trend has its end. Women’s issues, empowerment, girls’ education are all great topics to pursue. If only we pursue them instead of just perusing them.

Dear Diary…

Writing in a diary is precious, isn’t it? The first time I realised its beauty I was reading The Diary of Anne Frank. Born into a Jewish family in Hitler’s Germany, Anne maintained a diary during the few years she and her family were hiding from captivation. Her father, the only survivor of the concentration camp that wiped out the family, published her diary. To this day it remains a stunning reminder and a heart-wrenching portrayal of the life of a teenager in wartime.

It was the emotions and the ultimate simplicity of that diary that inspired me to start writing my own diary. Every day I’d record my thoughts, frustration, observations, and general musings. When I looked at the entries months afterwards, I noticed a lot of silly mistakes. But I also saw a lot of potential and my true self coming out of the diary. That’s how I understood so many aspects and characteristics of myself. It was so sincere and so flippant that I saw myself for the first time.

I loved what I discovered so much so that I incorporated diary entries as part of a story I wrote. I had a couple of chapters dedicated to diary entries of my main characters. And I felt the difference, too. I dug deep into the character to extract their innermost emotions, because the diary of a character speaks truer words about them than the character themselves. It’s so because diaries are for personal readership. Anyone who keeps a journal knows that no one would and should read it but themselves. That gives them immense confidence to be themselves and let their guard down.

I did. That’s why I managed to impress myself so. It’s the same of anyone else. Because we know it’s private, we allow ourselves to be real. We charade our true emotions and opinions in public for fear of people hating or misunderstanding them. While we project what we want to project to the world, a diary is where we take a break and project our actual thoughts.

During a particular rough time in my life, I was so self-pitying. No one else who met me would’ve known that at the time. I didn’t realise it myself—until months later I read what I’d written in my diary. It’s such a harsh way of telling yourself who you are and I think that’s a pretty powerful technique in storytelling.

I just started reading a book that’s made up of nothing but diary entries. I’ve only read about 50 pages but I already see the depth at which a journal characterises the person. I see two different personalities in the same journal entry—one when the character narrates what they did in public, and the second when the character writes down how they felt at that moment. There’s a lot of interesting juxtaposition and a beautiful arc of a story.

Although it’s so good so far, I wonder if it’d get boring as the story progresses. Too much of a good thing, perhaps? I can’t wait to find out.