Yesterday’s big news was Faridoon Shahyar quitting Twitter. He wrote a long blog post to announce his decision.
Now, who is this Faridoon Shahyar? This is him.
And why is his quitting Twitter a blog post here? Because of the reason he gave in his blog post. Here is that reason!
Anonymous trolls (@bollywoodgandu @nbkhoon @buttupsajid being the most relentless abusers) with weird names had been constantly targeting me. In spite of being blocked they were troubling me relentlessly through their goons. The malicious campaign was unhealthy and obviously there were vested interests behind it. Well, they have won. And, I have found my peace of mind.
Personally, when I wanted to tweet about his post announcing his leaving Twitter, this is what I drafted first,
Faridoon quits Twitter. One small step for Faridoon-kind, one giant relief for mankind.
But then, I took a second to read that again and added to my list of thousands of unpublished tweets and tweeted a more docile,
Faridoon Shahryar quits Twitter http://bit.ly/gwZJCS “I have tears in my eyes as I am writing this”
These days, you read about many Indian celebrities quitting Twitter – no, not because of lack of time, but more 
because of the fact that they are being hounded by trolls. And no, I’m not adding Faridoon into a list of celebrities, but he is definitely well-known in his space, for whatever reason.
Just imagine – in real life, this may seem like dozens of people standing outside your balcony. You come out of your bedroom and stand in the balcony, the people outside shout abuses at you. You go back to your room. Sometimes, they continue to abuse you even when you are inside your room.
So, what do you do in such a situation? Do you stop coming out of your room? Do you forget you ever had a balcony? Or, do you shift houses? Of course not – you move on in life. It’s your balcony/house, after all. And funnily, in case of Faridoon, I won’t even categorize them as abuses – they are different perspectives…on who Faridoon is, and on the quality of the content he generates. Now, who should actually know and realize who Faridoon is? Or, who should know what the quality of Faridoon’s content is? Those alleged-trolls? Or Faridoon himself?
My personal opinion about Faridoon really doesn’t matter here, but I need to add it here, else I may be considered his fan – I think he’s funny, in an unintended way. His songs and poetry are even more funny. Yes, as he himself says about his troll buddies’ opinions, he seems to suck up to stars in interviews and meetings…but these are just my personal opinion. And may be 50,000 others’ opinion too.
But he surely knows that there are 100,000 more out there who value what he tweets and blogs. Just see the 40+ comments on his post announcing his Twitter exit. Isn’t it an insult to all those people when he quits for a minority?
No, I’m not taking a side – all I’m saying is that it’s pointless to take yourself this seriously. In his post, Faridoon says,
Poetry comes naturally to me and I know I write well.
I’ve often been told that I tend to retweet a lot of the praise-tweets sent by my followers.
And yes I am Successful, even though I was being constantly made to feel like dirt by some trolls on twitter (backed by some people from the media).
My wife read what these trolls wrote about me last night. She said, its obvious that someone is paying them a big sum of money to target you.
The first 2 quips, I understand, are his own take on himself – he’s perfectly entitled to that. But the last 2?
Nobody can make anybody feel like dirt (his word, not mine) unless you allow yourself to feel that way. And most importantly, the part of paying someone to troll Faridoon Shahyar, of all the people in this planet, is unimaginably funny. What does one get by maligning Faridoon Shahyar? Is that act even worth anything monetarily? That’s the most absurd thing I have ever heard in 2011 and we’re just a month into it.
One of Faridoon’s songs is titled, ‘Burial of illusions’ (Read the lyrics | Listen to the song). Perhaps it’s time he buried this illusion of him being troll-worthy and moved on with this Twitter feed – not for his detractors, but for the people who love him and value his opinions.
That’s the case with everybody, in fact – Twitter is indeed a free-for-all; you have a choice in making and maintaining your circle. And to ignore the rest that do not matter to you.
Take my example – I maintain a 100 word music review blog. I’m not trained in any form of music (I wish I was!) and merely write what comes to my mind. I assume they are mildly worth a read, but I have heard from enough people that my reviews suck. That they are pointless, even for 100 words. That I do not treat music with respect to review them in 100 words. That my choice of words is pedantic. That I’m biased. All this, across the 5+ years I’m managing my music review blog. Do I even care? Of course not! Why? Because, it is their opinion and they have every right to assume anything they want, about me or my reviews. Unless this ‘they’ happen to be someone important in my life, I see no reason to worry about their opinions.
If I were to offer Faridoon (by nature of knowing him only through Twitter – I have never interacted with him) one unsolicited piece of advice, it would be this…Stop being a cry baby and get back to what you (think you) do best.
A final quote to leave you with, by American self-help guru, Wayne Dyer,
How people treat you is their karma; how you react is yours!
Dead Twitter bird pic courtesy, this post by Socialtrakr.