‘Video Culture in India’: A fascinating study of media democratisation before the internet age

Victimisation is a commercial act, insists the same despotic government that often assures that nobody quite understands what they’re trying to do. Bouts of so-called misunderstanding – by media, citizens, the opposition, and the larger watching world – transform it into a saint, absolutely detached from victimhood, even while presenting the comparable symptoms: flinging blame, feeling perpetually attacked, and finally, more significantly, claiming to be ignored, all across history. They offer a mirror to you, who often feels the same things, caressing you to choose wisely at the ballot. “Choose me,” they say insistently, unable to afford the subliminal at the risk of sounding – all the while being – elitist.

In the 2024 US elections, Donald Trump appeared in all the popular podcasts. He became not only accessible to the population of young American men who overwhelmingly voted for him this election but also presented himself as the option that legacy media had cast aside. Inadvertently, he became the only real option for the American population that Big Media supposedly no longer seemed to care for. By positioning himself as a candidate willing to show up in alternative forms of media, Trump becomes a whistleblower of the same fold that has...

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