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Gaurav Sabnis 🇮🇳🇺🇸 Profile picture
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28 Feb, 5 tweets, 4 min read
"y'all will stan cos picking a side is what everyone does by default"

I've just found the opening quote for our working paper on using conflict narratives as effective social media marketing strategies by brands. T-Mobile & Verizon did it at the Superbowl. Now them.
This prehistoric tribal instinct of picking sides is skillfully utilized by fascists to build their own profiles and get some lucrative benefits by throwing #factcheckbait. They test what works.

Look at these tweets. Fairly neutral. Average of 49 RTs. Not bad. But also see... ImageImageImageImage
Now look at these 4 tweets from the same bhakt account at about the same time. Tone switches to full on bigoted fascist and RTs are literally in the thousands. Because this person is amplified with QTs etc by many of y'all gullible liberals taking #factcheckbait.

PLEASE.

STOP! ImageImageImageImage
Just compare the RTs from the two different scenarios. The person tweets neutral even tolerant stuff, under 50 RTs. Hate against muslims and sikhs, thousands of RTs.

Which approach would you choose if you were just chasing fame? #factcheckbait
But sure, please keep RTing and QTing sanghi tweets every hour. Bhakts laugh all the way to the bank with your help in their engagement stats. And you're free to bash Rahul Gandhi and Mayawati for how THEY are so stupid losing elections. 🙄🙄
#FactCheckBait

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More from @gauravsabnis

Gaurav Sabnis 🇮🇳🇺🇸 Profile picture
1 Mar
Even when you show them Say You Love Me in that throaty voice of Demis Roussos that Pancham made up an urban legend about how he sang Mehbooba even with a sore throat or some such nonsense. They are like "no no but mehbooba is still BETTER". 🙄🙄
This is the real "genius" of Pancham. Getting his dad's friends who traveled abroad to bring him the latest hits from other countries. That he then plagiarized almost exactly and identically. And got called a genius.

Initially, he plagiarized artists who would not be known in India like Demis Roussos, Herb Albert, Paul Anka etc. But no one noticed or cared. They anointed him a genius. So in the 80s, Pancham is like, I could rip off Paul Fucking McCartney note by note and still be a genius.
Read 5 tweets
Gaurav Sabnis 🇮🇳🇺🇸 Profile picture
1 Mar
Something big is being shot here in the east village. Just tweeting about it so when it's eventually released, I can QT this tweet. 🤣🤣 #NYC Image
I feel like this huddle of young actors is key to the scene. Apparently it's a movie shoot not a TV shoot. Image
Now they're saying it's a TV show called, I think, Pose. It's cold and windy in a pandemic so not like I can just start chatting with strangers at close quarters like it's 2019. But "Pose" is the keyword to remember. Image
Read 4 tweets
Gaurav Sabnis 🇮🇳🇺🇸 Profile picture
1 Mar
Some reflexive responses to this are of the "Nooo, respect Caravan IP" variety. I get where they're coming from, but they miss the point.

Of course you should subscribe to Caravan if you can afford it!

But if you can't, this is a perfectly ethical "Fair Use Doctrine" mechanism
I went to grad school with the dude who started Caravan and also met him again last year. Caravan is not something he started to make money and retire in switzerland. It has a bigger purpose. Of course, quality journalism needs ₹₹₹ so that awesome content is paywalled. But...
...But if you can't afford to buy the subscription but would still like to read their spectacular investigative and other such pieces about India's cascading crises?

I really doubt Anant will lose sleep over someone offering to send PDFs of articles from Caravan.
Read 7 tweets
Gaurav Sabnis 🇮🇳🇺🇸 Profile picture
1 Mar
Dad came across this letter from his granddad to his dad. Damn, I knew my great granddad was like some posh E.M. Foster character but that handwriting and those turns of phrase! I feel like an awkward teenager in comparison! Image
"The silence should not be construed as displeasure" will our family motto from now on.
Btw, "Rai Ratan" great grandpa died soon after that letter. Almost 62 years ago. Very very few people have any direct memories of him. He lives on through occasional pieces of the past like these that we find.
Read 6 tweets
Gaurav Sabnis 🇮🇳🇺🇸 Profile picture
28 Feb
I remember there was a very good south indian coffee online startup here sourcing stuff from kumbakonam or some place very legit. I loved the chicory blast. Took me back to indian childhood coffee.
But murrcan wife @k_rupal & friends were like why does your coffee taste woodish?
I was not as much into food science then. So did not think of chicory being the difference then. But after a few more such rabbit hole dives spurred by "how can @k_rupal and i have the same thoughts on the bizarrest of random things but not coffee?", the answer was chicory!
And this then became a story to use forever in my marketing classes about preference models.

Like that tweet above says, chicory in coffee was not an exotic hipster innovation. It was basically targeted and intelligent contamination. It was fraud. Like milkmen watering milk. 🤣
Read 12 tweets
Gaurav Sabnis 🇮🇳🇺🇸 Profile picture
28 Feb
Desis who eat Mexican food made of Mexican things like corn, chillies, tomato, rajma, aloo, and are like "omg this is copied from desi food" always remind me of these sketches
My two twitter stories to show how Modi's india online has somehow managed to be even more insular and self-obsessed than US.

A gorgeous maiz callejero video went viral. In the mentions, dozens of desis going "wtf mexico is appropriating our bhutta! 😠😠" with profanity!!
Then there was this video of a very fancy high end Japanese shaved ice. So gorgeous and appealing. In the mentions,

Rest of the world: That looks good/bad/neutral/etc

Indians: Damn Japanese have stolen our baraf ka gola!! 😠😠

We really believe we in the tropics invented it!
Read 8 tweets

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