What kind of response does one expect to the news of a teenager topping the class 10th board exams? What kind of a silly question it is, you would wonder. A student topping board exams would obviously get praise, adulation, and widespread media coverage.
Only that in the case of Prachi Nigam, the topper of class 10th Uttar Pradesh board exams, the widespread media coverage came equipped with nasty social media trolls.
Prachi Nigam from Sitapur topped the class 10th UP Board exams by securing 98.5 percent marks. Yet, the netizens seemed not as impressed by her achievements as they were concerned about her facial hair. The teenager was brutally trolled across various social media platforms over her appearance in the picture shared by media publications.
Now, many teenage girls have a little bit of facial hair. It’s not a big deal. It’s the time of hormonal change and mostly, these things get sorted, by the time one enters adulthood. When I was in school, we didn’t have the culture of teenagers getting their eyebrows and upper lip done, or getting facial hairs removed. We were lucky to enjoy our childhood like children; social media hadn’t yet entered our lives to sexualize us and make us conscious about our identity as females. Thus, back in those days, schoolgirls sporting a bit of facial hair wasn’t a deal for anyone. I mean it’s just so silly and shallow and pointless to talk about such a thing.
But circa 2024, it’s the age of social media; teenagers, unfortunately, have already been overtly sexualized. From 12–14-year-old girls making suggestive reels on Instagram sporting vulgar outfits to 16–18-year-olds posting reels that could very well qualify as soft pornography, social media now is a dangerous space for children and teenagers. No wonder then that a class 10th topper would get trolled over her supposed unkempt appearance rather than being celebrated over her achievements.
From people brutally making fun of her to others advising the teenager that securing marks is ok but grooming is equally important, it’s hard to believe all this is happening in the 21st century. Looking at the comments, one feels as if we exist in some kind of a hyper-primitive dystopia that looks at women merely as objects of sexual gratification, so much so that it doesn’t even spare children. The media should have been talking about Prachi Nigam’s achievements and initiated a greater dialogue over further increasing women’s share in education and employment. But it’s sad that instead, it’s comments over the child’s facial hair that are making headlines.
Even those pretending to be well-meaning are giving unsolicited advice to Prachi Nigam and her family regarding the probability of her having PCOD and that they shouldn’t take it lightly. This is the most obnoxious extreme of objectification of women. Why does a woman’s self-worth have to be always linked with her looks and sexual desirability in the marketplace of voyeurs? Getting millions of hateful comments over some random facial hair is the last thing Prachi Nigam and her family would have expected. Yet, this is what she gets. It signifies our collective failure as a society and the overtaking of our social fabric by woke culture.
The woke culture presents itself as the biggest supporter of women’s rights and empowerment. Yet, ironically enough, all it does is throw women further down the dark and dingy hole of tribal cannibalism – where women are not just viewed as objects of sexual gratification by society, but they themselves go around marketing their sexual value in the market of predators, asking to be consumed.
This is the greatest disservice woke culture has done to the cause of women. In the name of feminism, it is serving women as commodities in the marketplace of capitalist fetishes. That is why woke intellectuals support pornography, keep raving about free sex, see marriage as essentially exploitative, and denounce all Bharatiya culture and traditions. The real important issues like women’s participation in the workforce, the issue of women breaking the glass ceiling in hitherto male-dominated professions, giving women equal access to education, the health status of women, etc. get neglected. That’s why you see millions of Bharatiya teenage women on social media wasting time shooting provocative reels of themselves and posting these on social media, grooming themselves as objects of sexual gratification and desire rather than focusing on studies and building a solid career.
That’s why a class 10th topper with 98.5 percent marks gets attention for all the wrong reasons on such platforms. It’s beyond shameful that we should have been having a discussion on such a topic. A young girl who should have been celebrating her achievements with her family members and planning her future course of studies has to waste her time and energy thinking about the unwanted trolls.
She is a child after all, and such hateful comments amplified through social media do have an impact on a child’s psychology. That’s why she even reportedly said “I wish I had not topped”. Such a statement by a board exam topper speaks volumes of her collective failure as a society.
But Prachi Nigam is a gutsy child who refuses to let the trolls take away her success and achievements. Prachi Nigam gave a befitting reply to trolls in an interview with ANI. She said that she was not bothered by the trolls because what ultimately mattered was her marks and not her appearance. She said that for those who don’t understand the difference between soorat (physical appearance) and seerat (inner beauty), I have nothing to say to them, it’s their views but I am just focusing on my studies. She said that she received both trolls and support for her appearance ever since her picture went viral, and she wants to thank everybody. Prachi further added that even Chanakya was trolled for his appearance and looks but it didn’t matter to him either.
Social media with its porous boundaries and virtual absence of any censorship regarding content has become a source of concern when it comes to the safety of children. Many countries have banned social media for kids under 13. A few western countries are considering regulating or outrightly banning social media for kids.
The UK government, for instance, has taken many steps, to ensure the safety of kids in the virtual space. The country passed the Online Safety Act in 2023 which makes it mandatory for social media to protect minors from harmful content. The act lays out a stringent mechanism for imposing fines on social media companies, in case of violation.
A 14-year-old British teenager Molly Russell committed suicide in 2017. A British court, in a unique ruling, held social media responsible for the death of the teenager. Molly Russel reportedly interacted with more than 2,000 social media posts related to suicide, self-harm, and depression in the 6-month time frame leading to her death.
The misuse of social media platforms for the sexual abuse of children and teenagers has become a pertinent topic of discussion worldwide. Authorities worldwide are alarmed by the range of complaints coming in regarding the issue. The social media giant Meta estimates about 100,000 children using Instagram and Facebook receive online sexual harassment material each day, including “pictures of adult genitalia”, as per the internal company documents of Meta made public in January 2024.
These figures were widely reported by numerous media organizations including The Guardian in the wake of a spate of allegations against Meta based on information the New Mexico Attorney General’s office received from presentations by Meta employees and communications between staff.
These examples are just the tip of the iceberg. Social media has become a dangerous space where children and teenagers are routinely bullied and sexualized. It is in the context of this ecosystem that one needs to look at the treatment meted out to the UP-Board class 10th topper Prachi Nigam. It’s great that Prachi had the support of family and well-wishers to fall back upon. So she didn’t let the trolls affect her mental health. But the issue raises a lot of questions about media ethics and privacy. How appropriate it is to share the picture of a school topper child millions of times on social media platforms to make some sensational comments and garner publicity? There are no rules governing social media so anybody can get away with anything. Social media influencers are always on the lookout for new and sensational ways to get more views and publicity even if that involves crossing lines of decency and good conduct.
Again, like we say always, social media is a wild unregulated mass of chaos that is in urgent need of stringent government regulations.
