Our idea of fun?

Making sense of the good, bad and often strange trending topics online

Our idea of fun?

Making sense of the good, bad and often strange trending topics online

An unassuming young man from Allahabad became an unlikely trending topic after a link to his blog went viral. 'I am Govind Tiwari.

I am on Orkut for making good friend (sic),' his profile read, which was enough to amuse a whole lot of people and make him a sensation.
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Gaurav Kamboj referred to him as 'the next Justin Bieber' while someone pointed out how 'Ad Sense Revenue on his blog, with estimated hits of 10000, would have been $36,500.'
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Gaurav G had a different opinion: 'This hysteria shows how our Indian psyche defines 'humour' as "making fun of others."

His view was echoed by Deepa Prabhu: 'Is the Tiwari blog funny? Yes. Should we make fun of it? No. There's a difference between enjoying something and mocking it.'

A bit of humble pie
So, the extraordinary live hearing of Rupert and James Murdoch being grilled by British MPs made headlines. More intriguing, however, were reports of Murdoch being attacked with a foam pie and his wife Wendi Deng leaping to his defence by slapping the perpetrator.
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It prompted Andy Borowitz to tweet: 'After today's hearings, British politicians are no longer afraid of Rupert, but are terrified by Wendi.'
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Minutes later, he added: 'The Murdochs plan to launch a full investigation to find out who is running the company they are in charge of.' Tony Martin had a question: 'When will these hearings install pie detectors?'

Those were the days
'When did it become cool' yielded responses like 'to post nude photos of yourself online?', 'to wear socks with sandals?', 'to take a picture showing your middle finger?' and, interestingly, 'to have arguments about your relationship on Twitter?'

The last word
I quote Chetan Bhagat: 'Sick of bookshops who fake bestseller lists to move their own stock. This misleads readers.' Weird. Isn't he the one usually topping those lists?