In The Buzz Cut, we bring you a round-up of all the weird, controversial, and wonderful stories we’ve been reading all week.
In response to Rihanna and Greta Thunberg’s tweets drawing attention the suppression of farmers’ dissent in India, right-wing nationalist protesters took to the streets to burn the international icons’ effigies while IT cells pummeled the women with threats and insults online.
*
This week, Twitter suspended The Caravan’s account just as the publication released a provocative, albeit brutally honest, cover story on how Akshay Kumar became the poster boy for India’s right-wing nationalist Hindutva politics.
*
As we struggle to find ways to bridge polarized ideologies and identities, we must also learn to speak to people we consider unreasonable — not by trying to change how they think, but by tapping into their personal motivations for thinking the way they do. It’s almost never as black and white as it may seem.
*
A bitcoin trader lost his password to an account containing millions of dollars worth of bitcoin, prompting a conversation about the tyranny of passwords and why we may be heading toward a passwordless future. Their replacement? Biometrics.
*
The controversy around Madam Chief Minister and its portrayal of a Dalit leader through the Savarna gaze has prompted many Dalit activists on social media to challenge the upper-caste hegemony in Indian media.
*
A Black Mirror-esque meme was born this week when an exercise instructor in Myanmar caught a military coup happening in the background as she filmed her workout. She was completely unaware, which makes the video especially dystopian.
*
How did a Punjabi hip-hop song made by a young British-Indian producer become a staple both in India and around the world? Yes, it’s “Mundian Tu Bach Ke,” and here’s why it’s an absolute banger.
*
This week, U.S. Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez explained, in detail and with tears in her eyes, what happened to her during the U.S. Capitol riot. Soon after, right-wingers started painting her video as a ploy for sympathy, alleging she was weaponizing her trauma to further her own agenda. Here’s why that’s not true in the slightest.
*
Westworld actress Evan Rachel Wood finally named her abuser this week: Marilyn Manson. This prompted more women to come out with their own accounts of abuse from Manson, signaling a reckoning that was long-coming for the famous rock musician.
