Digital fame, social shame

ISLAMABAD BUREAU —As the TikTok economy has become a sociological phenomenon in our country, it is important to understand the changing contours of social identity, visibility, cultural acceptance, diversified economic performance and platformisation. One side is represented by people who have invested years of their social experience through institutional exposure, education and traditional mechanisms of building social identity and visibility, while the other side represents quick visibility, often without traditionally recognised cognitive skills, and financial success through emerging economic models.

The tension between the two is sometimes not about genuine moral disagreement but about the underlying insecurity of not adapting to digital platforms and new identities. Our society is still at an early stage of accepting new forms of democratisation of economic participation and the possibility of achieving financial independence through the platform economy.

Sometimes, this insecurity stems from compromised cultural values, while at other times, it emerges from the importation of a homogeneous, globalised social structure. TikTok and other digital platforms represent a new form of decoupled economies based on platformisation, where people without traditionally established or celebrated norms of intelligence or intellect can mainstream their forms of social performance and intersect them with economic outcomes.

Pakistani society accepts the same content of dramas and films, but its becomes difficult to accept the similar forms of expression that emerge from people who lack conventional educational or intellectual credentials. What is celebrated on television or in films can suddenly become a source of embarrassment when ordinary individuals perform it on digital platforms and earn a living from it.

If the very same thing is opted for by a third party or decentralised as a source of income or content diversification, it becomes a source of disgrace to our culture. Apparently, no TikTokker has mainstreamed content involving objectionable morality, such as nudity or compromised bodily exposure. Then why do people in Pakistan associate all evil and bad things with TikTokkers?

There are mainly two reasons. First, there is an unconscious lack of acceptance of new forms of earning potential through digital platforms, leading to unbearable stress and anxiety among people who unintentionally consider themselves incapable of achieving so much through these new money-making platforms.

Second, there is cultural rigidity in associating everything with good and bad. If something is not introduced through socially constructed norms, a long-term path to gaining visibility and hard work, it becomes unacceptable from a moral standpoint because, culturally, we have never been exposed to instant, short-term and alternative means of gaining visibility.

In the coming days, the traditional sense of the American Dream will become less relevant. This does not mean that we should abandon established educational processes. It means that economic activity and performance have diversified. Diversification and adaptation are always difficult. The transition and social change require time to build new momentum towards accepting emerging norms.

The idea of declining children's grooming and future prospects is not inherently connected to the TikTok economy or digital platforms. Social institutions such as family, religion and schools should accordingly change their approach to raising children, with careful consideration of changing economies and their modes of performance.

It is always easy, in times of social change, to disassociate the failures of social institutions in performing their manifest and latent functions and diffuse this failure onto new forms of emerging institutions. It is time for our social institutions to reconsider new designs or new forms of social norms and values to develop our coming generations, both as individuals and in their relationships with others.