Market-driven comedy: Make fun, nothing is sacred || Acharya Prashant, Advait Mahotsav (2021)

Acharya Prashant

Video Information: 29.11.21, Shastra Kaumudi, Rishikesh, Uttar Pradesh  Context: ~ How to break our comfort zone? ~ What gives power to change life? ~ What is love? ~ Who dare to take risk in life?   Music Credits: Milind Date ~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Transcript

00:00 Namaste Acharya ji. I watch stand-up sometimes to check what's going around. I see comedians

00:09 using satire and sarcasm for India in their comedy. Big companies like Amazon, Netflix

00:15 are hiring big content creators for promotions and making videos and they are shifting from

00:20 their channels to the company's channels. And those with individual channels who have

00:26 their content also say that they do comedy to explain misery of India which is just comedy

00:33 and an exaggeration which is their profession. Recently there was a controversy of a comedian

00:40 who performed in the Kennedy Center who compared two India's and which looked like true to

00:46 me some of the points. Do they not know about India as a nation since they re-travel and

00:54 they know the impact that will create to the followers including in the foreign soil or

00:59 they have sold themselves for the content. How to understand this? So if you allow, would

01:07 like to share few lines that he spoke in the Kennedy Center. I come from two India's with

01:16 children in the mask hold hands of each other and the leaders hug each other without the

01:22 mask. Our AQI is 9000 and yet we sleep in the roof and look at the stars. We scoff about

01:30 sexuality and yet we scoffed a billion people. We have largest working populations under

01:36 30 and yet we listen to 75 year old leaders and follow their 150 year old idea. We kicked

01:44 out the British and called the government the ruling party. Women wear in sarees and

01:51 sneakers and yet they have to take advice from the old men who never wore saree and

01:58 they will never will. India that self-serves but does not self-preserves. India that does

02:05 not shut up and yet does not speak up. So and more, these kind of things that he spoke

02:12 with dated controversy. How should we? I have not watched that show. But in the lines that

02:21 you have quoted, I do not see much that is worthy of big condemnation. So as far as these

02:41 particular lines that you read out go, people have a right to express their views and I

03:02 do not see much ignorance in these lines. Maybe more was said by this person. I do not

03:13 know of that. You have not quoted that. If it comes to me, maybe my opinion will change.

03:19 But in these 5 or 6 lines, there is hardly anything one can object to.

03:27 So if I ignore these lines, so the comedians who make fun of India with respect to comedy,

03:35 how should we see that? See that is the cheapest thing to do, no?

03:44 To make fun. So that is what so many people do. Putting in serious concerted effort to

04:02 better the situations is not something everybody has the guts for. And because we are a frivolous

04:24 audience, so frivolousness and flippancy sells with us. At no point in the history of mankind

04:40 was so much comic content available to us. At no point in the history of India were there

04:57 so many comedians. You could take that as a proportion of the population or as a proportion

05:10 of digital content creators. You will find that the share of comedian comedians is steeply

05:24 rising. Why is that so? Because that's the easiest, the laziest route to take. Scoff

05:36 at somebody, taunt, make fun. And especially when you know that there is going to be no

05:50 reprisal, if you know that there are going to be consequences, then making fun is not

06:07 so cheap. Price has to be paid. So pick a target that's not going to retaliate and

06:19 keep poking fun. Keep humiliating. This is just falseness at so many levels. There is

06:44 ignorance in it. There is violence in it. But I want to ask you something. Would these

07:01 people continue with what they are doing if their tickets do not sell and their videos

07:10 do not get views? They do this for a living. They are making money either from the tickets

07:22 or from Amazon or Netflix or YouTube. Where is that money coming from? It's coming from

07:31 us. That's the kind of content we enjoy. What the fellow in question is saying is market

07:51 driven because there exists a big market for such content. So such content will be supplied.

08:01 That brings us back to Vedanta. Unless you know what your reality is, you will be attracted

08:14 to all kinds of nonsense. You will keep doing things that hurt others and hurt you. A certain

08:30 frivolousness is the very mark of this age. A certain lack of respect towards anything

08:46 and everything. A complete absence of sacredness. Nothing is to be held as sacred. Therefore,

08:59 there is nothing to be serious about. And if you find something sacred, spit at it.

09:13 In fact, hunt for everything that is blemishless, pure, holy and spotless and then spit at it.

09:29 That's what generates the maximum laughs. That's what is most fun. Turn the holy into

09:47 a joke so that you can continue living your petty and ugly life. That's the intention.

10:06 If you treat the sacred with respect, then you cannot continue being what you are. If

10:21 you take something as high, sublime, worth your respect, then how can you honestly still

10:32 continue to lead a pathetic life? You will have to improve, you will have to rise. So

10:45 what do you do? You destroy all the ideals. You become a self-declared iconoclast. What

11:02 do I do? I bring down the deities. Why? Because I do not want to rise up. I am such a lowly

11:15 fellow, I do not even want to rise. So what do I do? I pull down the gods from the sky

11:27 and bathe them in excreta and it sells because that's what we all want. Please understand

11:40 this is the age of mass production. You have machines, you have technology and technology

11:51 is improving by the day. The fellow who is owning and running the machine, the corporation,

12:02 the empire, out of his greed wants you to consume because the production of the machine

12:11 is of no use if there is nobody to buy it and consume it. And the rate of production

12:18 is exponentially rising. The output of the factory is rising very steeply. Therefore,

12:33 a market has to be created equally swiftly. And how do you create a market? By turning

12:41 people into consumers. I am producing so much but people are not buying it. Why? Because

12:50 they do not need it. So what do I do? I change their entire value system. I bring them to

12:58 a lowly level of consciousness which tells them that the purpose of life is consumption.

13:06 And when they are brought down to that low level of consciousness, all they will do is

13:11 consume and then my things will sell and then I can make profits. How do you bring down

13:20 their consciousness? By dissociating it from the sacred. That's what comedy is doing.

13:29 It's destroying the sacred so that there is nothing holy, nothing worth worshipping

13:42 left in your life, nothing worth looking up to is left in your life. All that you have

13:52 is profanity. You can laugh at anything. Upanishads you can laugh at. Ram and Shiv you can laugh

14:04 at. Everything is the butt of a joke. And especially if you treat something as important,

14:24 it has to be turned into a joke. The new chap enters the hostel

14:44 and he is reciting some verses. Make fun of him. Equally a new boy enters the hostel and

15:05 he is parroting some lowly rapper. Nobody will make fun of him. Some illiterate rapper

15:22 is acceptable. But if you are chanting religious verses, you will be mocked. In fact, I don't

15:45 have the stats but I suppose more than half so called YouTubers are just comedians. Let's

15:54 call them jokers. And even more blatant version of this comedy is roast. Humiliate. If there

16:14 are people who are sensitive to their values, hit them where it hurts the most. Mock their

16:22 values. Somebody respects his mother, mock him. A rapist is acceptable. A devotee is

16:46 not. When it will come to a rapist, you will say, let's look at everybody as a human

16:55 being. Why are we ostracizing this person? All are equal. But a devotee cannot be forgiven.

17:14 We will poke jokes into his heart till he succumbs.

17:42 There is a particular value system that is being sought to be imposed on everybody. If

17:58 you subscribe to that value system, you will not be made fun of. And if you deviate from

18:07 that system, even by an inch, by a millimeter, life will be tough on you. You will be killed

18:33 and the weapon will be laughter. He was laughed to death. He was joked and mocked to death.

18:52 What kind of death? Not physical obviously. The death of the value system. What kind of

18:58 value system is being preferred? The one that suits consumption. You don't eat animals,

19:08 you will be made fun of. You live an austere life, you will be made fun of. You do not

19:34 belong to the mainstream, you will be made fun of. You love the nation, you will be made

19:45 fun of. The hegemony of the evil. Why? Because you are prepared to tolerate it. Amazon or

20:14 Netflix or YouTube do not pay these people from their own pocket. Amazon is not a charity.

20:23 Where does Amazon get its bucks from? From you and me. Amazon gets it from us and then

20:32 pays a part of that to them. Why do we subscribe? Why do we watch? Why don't we boycott? These

20:48 people are not operating from any deep value system. They are not idealists. They do not

20:57 even have an ideology. All that they want is money. For the sake of money they can sell

21:04 anything. Their nation, their god, their mother. Cut off their financial supply lines and there

21:22 will be no more. They are not ideology driven. And of course they are not driven by the truth.

21:31 Let alone truth, I am saying they don't even have idealism. You are sitting here talking

21:51 of these things. Your own younger brother or sister might be a subscriber. Where do

22:00 these people get their millions and millions of subscribers from? Please tell me. That's

22:07 what runs their business. Those subscribers aren't dropping from Mars. They are coming

22:16 from our families. Why do you allow that to happen? Your foundation is made to spend 80%

22:44 of the donations it receives on just promotion and publicity. You are left with hardly anything.

23:01 Everything is devoted to making these words reach people. Why? Because you will not help

23:25 reach these words to others. Some nonsensical content and everybody is watching it. And

23:48 if we want this to be watched, then we have to pay through our nose. Because you will

24:16 happily watch that content and share it and propagate it. This you would not watch. And

24:25 if by chance you happen to watch it, you will feel ashamed of sharing it. You will say,

24:33 you know my friend Sarkal, what will they think? I have ideals or something. They will

24:41 say, oh my God, you know this chap, he talks of the truth. He is infected by reality. Don't

25:01 go close. Maintain social distancing. He is infected. So all that you send to the foundation

25:23 goes back in just ensuring that more and more of you are watching the content that you watched

25:34 to come to the foundation. That content didn't reach you by chance. That content didn't

25:43 reach you organically. That content reached because we cut down on all our other expenses

25:59 to ensure that the content is reaching you. See the thing is competitive. A fellow can

26:11 watch only one video at a time. So either he watches that trash or he watches this.

26:27 You have made your choice and that will decide your fate and the fate of this nation. The

26:39 day you decided to turn absolutely worthless, junk people into superstars on Amazon and

26:54 YouTube, that's the day you sealed the fate of this nation. Just go and check who are

27:05 the top 10 or 20 Indian YouTubers and you'll know what is happening. It's not only happening,

27:20 it's being promoted. Remember the man who runs the factory. He wants this to happen.

27:27 He's ensuring this happens.

27:41 [MUSIC PLAYING]

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