Snapchat-Snapdeal, Sonu Nigam or Sood, And Now Sagarika Ghatge: What’s The Confusion?

What’s in a name, you ask? A lot, apparently! Ask those who got trolled recently on social media as a result of mistaken identity. First, users slammed Snapdeal instead of Snapchat after reports of the latter’s CEO Evan Spiegel allegedly calling India “a poor nation” surfaced. Then, actor Sonu Sood got flak for singer Sonu Nigam’s Twitter rant against morning Azaan (call for prayer). And on Monday, after cricketer Zaheer Khan announced his engagement to actor Sagarika Ghatge, some congratulatory messages — including those by Indian coach Anil Kumble and Khan’s current IPL franchise Delhi Daredevils — poured in for journalist Sagarika Ghose instead.

Never laugh at your wife's choices. You are one of them !!! Partners for life. #engaged @sagarikavghatge pic.twitter.com/rUOtObFhiX

— zaheer khan (@ImZaheer) April 24, 2017

Kumble and Delhi Daredevils were quick to correct the tag later, but not before Twitterati had a field day with grabs of the tweets.

Even Sagarika Ghose couldn’t hold back.

oops wrong Sagarika, sirs! Main do bachche ki ma hoon? https://t.co/37wH9INQZP

— Sagarika Ghose (@sagarikaghose) April 24, 2017

You must be thinking, ‘Why can’t people just check their tweets for facts?’ Here’s what stand-up comedian Rohan Joshi of AIB has to say: “These goof ups are just one of those things that happen when you’re trigger happy. Twitter works on a shoot first and ask later philosophy and sometimes people just need to chill out!”

Comic Sorabh Pant feels that the masses just love to jump the gun as soon as they get an opportunity and the same happened in these cases. “Snapdeal and Sagarika Ghose, both have been a troll target, and people just needed the slightest connection to tweet some more about them. The Snapchat incident and Zaheer’s announcement gave them that. We roam around with typos in our mind and many tend to believe whatever they read on the net too. It takes 18 seconds to do a simple search and verify the information, but then who would do that right? Zaheer himself might be confused about who he is marrying now” says Pant.

Comedian Gaurav Gera, too, agrees that social media functions on the ‘Chinese Whisper’ model and people often end up tweeting whatever they feel like. “This mindless social media game of tweeting or expressing whatever comes to mind without giving it any thought actually reflects on the society we are. People don’t want to do the homework before saying anything. They read it somewhere or hear it somewhere and without knowing what the issue is they just tweet. It is funny and sad at the same time,” he says.

While others take it easy, some do not like such behaviour by Twitter users. “I am not really as active on Twitter because it is a hate fest mostly infested with paid trolls,” says comic Mallika Dua.