Shitposting has evolved from controversial tweets to meaningful discourse, thanks to Gen Z, millennials and the growing culture of building in public.
In early 2020, Nicaia D’Souza – then 25 years old and unemployed – became very active on Twitter. Dissatisfied with the jobs that came her way because of her vocational education and experience in the hospitality sector, she decided to take a break to pursue her interest in the music festival scene in India. But as the pandemic intensified, physical events took a backseat and D’Souza found herself spending hours on social media. She looked at the microblogging site as a place to have meaningful discussions and share her opinions on a wide range of topics.
“I started finding ways to offer my opinion in a manner that was kind as well as adding value to the discussion,” said D’Souza, who was inspired by writer and coach David Perrel’s description of Twitter as a library of ideas and a social club.
When she saw a tweet from Raj Kunkolienkar asking people for their best Spotify recommendations, D’Souza replied with a dozen playlists that she had curated to match a certain vibe. That’s how Kunkolienkar, founder of Stoa, an online business school, and D’Souza, a music junkie and self-proclaimed Twitter shitposter, got talking.
D’Souza invited Kunkolienkar to a WhatsApp group she managed for music recommendations. Impressed with her enthusiasm, empathy and knack for bringing people with similar interests together, Kunkolienkar offered her a job as a community manager for Stoa.
A year into this fulltime role now, D’Souza continues to use Twitter as a sounding board to shitpost and often builds friendships along the way.
Shitposting is the posting of controversial or off-topic “hot takes” on social media, mainly to create a stir or distract from the main conversation. A term born on the internet, Urban Dictionary describes a shitpost as a post of little to no sincere insightful substance. Especially a “shit” (low)-effort/quality-post with the sole purpose to confuse, provoke, entertain or otherwise evoke an unproductive reaction.
A meme can be a shitpost, but a shitpost by itself doesn’t have to stick to a repetitive format like a meme. A shitpost is funny because it isn’t a predictable repetition of an existing form.
Since its inception, shitposting has gotten a bit of a reputation – from being used frivolously by people bored on the internet to being used as a trolling tool in presidential elections. In the past couple years, though, Gen Z and millennials in India have found a way to use it as a way to raise their hands and sometimes even get a chance to be seen and heard.
Neha Reddy, 22, who describes herself as “unhinged, uninhibited and dehydrated” in her Twitter bio, is a serial shitposter. Reddy, who got active on Twitter last year, said she discovered an internship marketing role at Antler, an early-stage venture capital firm, through the platform and applied for it. A fulltime marketing analyst at the investment firm now, Reddy says young people voicing their opinions on social media has also led to them getting a seat at the table.
“Social media platforms like Twitter give a peek into your work and personality that transcends a conventional resume. We can now showcase our work, build in public and access spaces like VC firms that have conventionally been gatekept,” said Reddy. “Getting a foot in the door is getting easier.”
Antler has committed one-third of its capital this year to back founders in the Web3 space – a term used loosely for the new iteration of internet based on decentralised blockchain technology– probably recognises that the early adopters and builders in this area are Gen Z and millennials. An early stage fund, Antler, on its India website, calls for student founders and first time entrepreneurs to pitch them.
Shitposting as an entry point in the workforce discourse in India is relatively new. According to Google trends, shitposting became an internet trend in India around 2015, spiking around December 2016, shortly after the US presidential elections, when news around the meme-fication of the elections was doing the rounds. The next highest spike for shitposting in India was in April 2021, when the second lockdown started during the Covid-19 Delta wave. Millennials and Gen Z took to social media as a form of expression to find their tribe.
Young Indians are now using shitposting innovatively, to say the least. Building a social media profile that goes beyond the traditional resume and isn’t fixated on pedigree or background, Gen Z and millennials are shitposting as a differentiator to stand out in a crowd. The openness of social platforms like Twitter allows people from all backgrounds to use social media cleverly as a means to discovery.
Sunil Panwar, 21, from Jhalamand village in Jodhpur, comes from a lower income household. Panwar, who worked as a child to support his family and couldn’t afford a college education, discovered the power of social media to build communities.
At a recent Web3 meetup in Bangalore, Panwar stood out from the usual techie crowd as a representative of rural India eager to build solutions in the metaverse and got himself multiple backers. What he lacked in formal education, he made up with his social media chops and got himself a gig as a community builder at OGCLUB, a community for Web3 enthusiasts in India.
“Shitposting gets more reactions and engagement than gyaan-based threads on Twitter,” said Panwar, a self-taught social media expert. He’s now on a mission to bring the challenges of rural India to the fore and help others like him from small towns find opportunities in the tech corridors.
(Source: www.moneycontrol.com)