I was taking a stroll the other day when something bright caught my attention. It was a poster of a college fest. It looked quite attractive if you ask me…..elegant design, vibrant colours….everything seemed perfect. It seemed like the designer had put in a lot of effort. But as I was reading the contents, I started laughing like a madman. It was because of the tagline. It read…TO MAKE PEOPLE GO BANANAS. However, something started to bug me. How could sensible people who spend hours designing a poster, allow such a stupid tagline? Mere five words that spoiled hours of labour. Pondering over the matter, I walked away.
Some days later, it happened again. This time, the poster was more attractive than the previous one and the tagline…..more absurd. It read “Our Fest is Number 1, Everything Else is Number 2”. Sure enough, the laugh was even harder. But the choice of such a ridiculous tagline gave rise to a concern in my mind. A concern….that people are losing their mind. Then again, it seemed kinda obvious. People are enthralled by the most absurd shit these days (I will spare the details but in your heart, you know what I am talking about). So Dumb Taglines….Not a big surprise.
But eventually, I found the reason. I came across a competition on facebook. There is this college which was organising a fest and needed a tagline (Well I won’t name it because you actually popularise things even when you defame them and I learnt this the hard way). They offered a reward for the best tagline. Everybody can use a little extra money now and then, so I thought….What the hell, let’s give it a shot.
Two days later, I get a message that my tagline has been shortlisted. I quickly browsed through the other shortlisted ones. There were some really stupid and absurd taglines (the weirdest entries were from the college itself because we all know how “shortlisting” is done when it comes to our own college). The message said that now, I just have to promote it and get as many “facebook likes” as I can and the one with the most ‘likes’ wins. And just like that, it all became crystal clear.
So no need to worry if you don’t have the best entry because to win such a competition, you just need to be a girl or have a lot of FB friends. It’s an added bonus if you fulfil both the parameters. The problem is that even with the best entry, normal people with limited friends stand no chance in such competitions. It makes no sense to judge promotional skills of people in a competition that needs creative skills. As I said, It’s Like Judging A Sociopath By His Ability To Make Friends!!!
Such competitions have set a trend and there is nothing you can do to stop them. So moving on, this absurd competition is about to end and I am pretty sure that this fest’s tagline is going to be “Our Fest is BBBBBBBBBBEST” or “ Pehle Fest attend karein fir vishwas karein”.
Come to think of it, the way people vote in our elections isn’t much different because people have no regard for how good a representative is because the one with the most friends in high places, always wins. Maybe we can have the elections on facebook….Hit like to vote for Mr Abc. You get the same results at zero cost!!!
Satirical Satty 