Heh, seems like sanghi cell has taken note of this thread. Already I have more impressions than followers.
Off to the woods for the day but leaving this here to compare numbers against throughout the day.
Another data point on diffusion efficiency of #QTbait. What Nupur did.๐คท๐ฝโโ๏ธ
Damn, in less than an hour, impressions almost double!
Do you see what I mean about why these sanghi influencers intentionally make provocative #factcheckbait#QTbait? And how you help them by taking that bait?
And I'm a random dude who doesn't need followers to make a living.
The reason this random prof in a small private NJ university has 30K+ followers is fundamentally similar to why hagga, shefvee, rupaSubra, gabbbar, and an assortment of trolls named Nupur Sharma have become household names by just tweeting.
If you say something on social media that gives others an opportunity to sound smarter or more accurate or more compassionate than you, then you WILL get a lot of visibility, even through the hate QTs. And bring you more like minded followers. And build your brand.
Simple ๐คท๐ฝ
Say "India is a Hindu nation, deal with it!"
Many useful liberal idiots will hate QT it, making it more visible to a lot of sanghis.
Say "India is NOT a Hindu nation, deal with it!"
Many useful sanghi idiots will hate QT it, making it more visible to a lot of liberals.
It is especially helpful if you have a noticeable and easily refutable factual error that doesn't really detract from your larger point.
For example, Islam is 1500 years old, hehe. That was a genuine typo. But what a bounty it yielded! How can you resist fact checking that?
So there are legions of IT cell sockpuppets and AAPiyas falling over each other to "pwn" Sabnis by ridiculing his math. Though in doing that, you are giving huge new audiences to Sabnis' basic point, which is that Indian Muslims as an Indian as Indian Hindus, if not more so!
Remember, I'm just a random dude here who researches social media and is very vocal and blunt about his liberal politics. And yet there are many strangers who obsess over what I think or tweet.
Imagine this "power" being wielded by someone who actively wants to be an influencer.
Lol, sanghis are posting stupid questions even in response here, as if I have any interest in debating them.
Reminder.
I'm not here to debate fascism. I'm here to berate it.
Similarly, remember that sanghis are not here to debate liberalism, just to berate it. Ignore off!
Hah, we have crossed 120K impressions in just a few hours. Helped along by Dhume jumping in to correct my math. ๐๐
Let's see if we can get this tweet to a million impressions by tonight. Just by pointing it out to sanghis and centrists.
My most useful idiot after Asthana ๐๐
Exactly! All @dhume could find was what was actually a typo, but could very well have been a factual error and that's the one he was fixated on cos it's so easy to call out!
This tendency is weaponized by many conservatives, including Sadanand himself.
By fixating on how I made Islam older than it was, @dhume & his fellow sanghis have given a lot of exposure to my larger message, which is that India is NOT a Hindu nation. I'm not complaining.
They do this on purpose every day every hour to dictate Twitter trends.
If you have a thick skin and a total disregard for what strangers think of you, #FactCheckBait & #QTbait are the easiest and quickest ways to get visibility for your message.
This is going to be a big theme in my forthcoming book. ๐
Me looking at the Twitter activity for the original post. ๐
We have crossed a quarter million in half a day! ๐๐
Mostly because @dhume the supposed "classical liberal", in an entire thread talking about the diverse history of India, was fixated on Islam. ๐๐
AEI and Murdoch sinecures really blunt an already feeble intellect!
โข โข โข
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"Well, you Hindus, you say all the present sufferers belong to the class of sinners of the previous births. Good. You say the present oppressors were saintly people in their previous births, hence they enjoy power. Let me admit that your ancestors'
' were very shrewd people, they tried to find out theories strong enough to hammer down all the efforts of reason and disbelief. But let us analyse how far this argument can really stand.
From the point of view of the most famous jurists punishment can be justified only from'
'three or four ends to meet which it is inflicted upon the wrongdoer. They are retributive, reformative and deterrent. The retributive theory is now being condemned by all the advanced thinkers.
Deterrent theory is also following the same fate. Reformative theory is the only one'
A weekly ritual is going to my local @nypl branch (either Tompkins or Epiphany) and pick up a book from the NYC History aisles. Just based on the cover and the jacket.
I picked this cos it looked so much like where I live!
And whoa! Really WHOA!
A personal plus history ๐งต
The reason the pic on the cover of Parkchester looks so much like my home #StuyTown is because Parkchester was the OG Stuy Town.
And not only is it a fascinating history tied into a lot of modern Americana, but also tied to the ongoing though fast deflating real estate bubble.
Take a trip with me to late 1930s USA.
MetLife as we know it now, or Metropolitan Life Insurance Company, was the biggest financial institution in the country.
This was before social security or disability or unemployment insurance or any safety net.
Gotten a lot of DMs & emails in the last couple of days from students since this story became a thing.
Of the very understandable "430 days is more than a year so should I even bother applying for 2023? ๐ณ" nature.
This is a ๐งต to tell them, breathe! It'll be okay. Really!
That graphic up there is just the graphic of the estimated wait times taken on that day in late September.
September is when the school year starts in US. There really are no student visas being processed.
So that "430 days" is meaningless. At this point anyway.
Throughout the pandemic and after, through the Trump as well as Biden administrations, US consular staff in India has worked hard to prioritize student visas and work visas. For the very practical reason that US would shut down otherwise.
India is first and foremost an Adivasi nation. I mean if you're interested in actual real history and anthropology and sociology and suchlike.
First and foremost Indians are the Adivasis. They settled here first.
So at least second and secondmost, it was a Hindu nation, right?
Incorrect!
Surely you've all seen the Harappan ruins. In India and Pakistan. Fascinating advanced civilization with drainage systems that worked even during the recent floods!
Nothing to do with "Hinduism".
There was a fairly advanced civilization Co-existing with the indigenous folks on the subcontinent in the Harappan period that has nothing in common with what we today think of as "Hinduism". And it was a fun loving civilization per evidence. Not drab sanskaris like sanghis.
I'm sure it didn't help that Modi actively took sides against Biden in the election, but the full story here has little to do with India and more to do with Chuck Grassley, one of the foremost assholes in the Senate.
Eric Garcetti was nominated over a year ago. GOP blocking it.
You can Google the details yourself, but TLDR is Biden nominated L.A. Mayor Eric Garcetti for the post last summer. Rising Dem star, next gen leader. GOP trying to end his national career early with a block ostensibly based on a second degree me too but not really a me too.
A Garcetti aid was accused of sexually harassing a police bodyguard for the mayor. Something that is connected to the LA Mayor vs LAPD fight, a whole other can of worms. Garcetti was not involved even remotely and was cleared of wrongdoing after an independent investigation.
This bird site gives you some laughs for sure ๐๐
I can totally see Hickenlooper staffers having a long group chat with him about exactly how he should respond and that emoji was the end result. Not bad.
I'm thinking @SenatorHick's version of this story goes, "OMG it took 10 months but finally someone recognized me on the streets of DC" ๐คญ๐