This week in taking ‘The Dependent’ too seriously
Member of the Punjab Assembly from the ruling Pakistan Muslim League (Nawaz), LUMS graduate, businesswoman, and fashionista,Hina Butt, has found herself in a bit of a tangle over what can only be described as social media stupidity.
Among Hina’s claims to fame are being the daughter of business tycoon Pervez Akhtar Butt, the designer behind clothing brand ‘Teena,’ a PML-N MPA from the Punjab, and perhaps most importantly, the latest victim of Pakistan’s Today’s satire weekly ‘The Dependent.’
This is not to say that Hina has been made the center of any joke by The Dependent, but rather, that she has managed to make herself the focal point of social media ridicule.
Unfortunately since the inception of ‘The Dependent,’ and before that its predecessor ‘Khabristan Today,’ there has been a general trend that despite our many disclaimers, people manage to only see the satire at face value and believe it as fact.
Hina Butt, this week’s unsuspecting causality, managed to tweet out a picture of The Dependent’s print edition bearing the headline “PSG’s record Neymar signing result of investor interest created under Nawaz Sharif: Maryam Nawaz.”
The Dependent story: “PSG’s record Neymar signing result of investor interest created under Nawaz Sharif: Maryam Nawaz.”
What was clearly meant to be a joke, a far fetched one even as jokes go, was still tweeted out by Hina who was busy sending out a string of pictures of different newspapers showing pro-PML-N headlines.
Such things are, of course, to be expected in the fast paced modern age, but what is indeed disturbing is when lawmakers fall for such traps. And while they too are human, one would want public figures of a certain standing to at least be a little more diligent.
What is even more disheartening is the fact that Hina is one of the younger lawmakers in the Punjab Assembly. Aged only 35 and a graduate of LUMS that has studied in the United Kingdom, one cannot even attribute such gaffes to age and technical impotency neigh Naeem ul Haq.
And as if this were not enough, the constant trolling meant that instead of taking it in stride, Hina managed to dig an even deeper hole for herself.
Rather than fessing up or replying to the trolls in turn, the chicette junior parliamentarian decided to go on the defensive, posting even more tweets of dependent articles including “Messi spearheads array of stars thronging rally supporting Nawaz Sharif” with the defence that she had tweeted it because it was Pakistan Today’s satire and it was funny.
It was Pakistan Today Satire which was supposed to funny! pic.twitter.com/L4tS2Flqex
— Hina Butt (@hinaparvezbutt) August 14, 2017
The Dependent story: “Messi spearheads array of stars thronging rally supporting Nawaz Sharif”
And while the prolific Ms Butt’s comments have definitely caused the team of ‘The Dependent’ to blush and be honoured by the praise, it does raise a couple of questions. Firstly, why exactly were the initial tweets then deleted? Was it just panic or is this a contradictory narrative? More importantly does the same panic and inconsistency run in the assembly as well?
And if all else is fine, Ms Butt may just get in trouble with her party leadership for finding the two pieces she tweeted out funny. After all, while ‘The Dependent’ is proud of its policy of making fun of everyone equally, these two were clearly meant to poke fun at the PML-N and their oblong claims.
Taking satire too seriously has been a problem noticed and commented on before on a number of occasions. And while there are many informed readers bothered enough to take it for what it is, there probably will not be a time when this is still not a problem. Those with more public profiles are just more unlucky than the average commmenter, for the constant microscope they are usually under.
