From Indias largest newsroom, I'm Arun George and this is the
Times. Of.
India Podcast Priyanshu Yadav was like many other young online
influencers who are trying to build a following.
On his Instagram handle, there are videos of him experimenting
with various types of makeup and dress on Diwali.
He posted a video to his nearly 15,000 followers in which he's
dancing and then there's a transition into him dressed in
Asadi Priyanshu died by suicide in his home when his mother had
gone out. It's still not clear what were
the issues affecting him, but a finger of blame has been pointed
at the sheer number of hate messages he received for the
video of him dressed in a sari. Shivam Bhardwaj is a queer
influencer who has over 1,00,000 followers on YouTube and over
3800 followers on Instagram. On his handle, the Guy in a
skirt, Shivam posts fashion and makeup related videos while also
blogging about his life. Shivam says he's seen an uptick
in hate comments since the news of Priyanshu's death and the
circumstances behind it were. Reported.
I just feel like after Pranshu's death, people have just started
putting more hate in the comment section of Square Creators.
Personally, I've noticed that I people are literally commenting
when it's my turn because Pranshu is gone when it's my
turn next to you. Those were the comments
triggering to me because I was like, Oh my God, you are wishing
for my death. That is the last thing I want.
In today's episode, we're speaking with Shivam Bhardwaj
and Anish Gawande, the founder of Pink List, about the abuse
faced online by queer influencers.
While Shivam explains the hate speech queer influencers face,
particularly those who are from small towns, Anish Gawande talks
about his bigger worries. Given the lack of policing and
rise in hate speech on online platforms.
Shivam Bhardwaj says there's no shortage of hate comments that
he receives on social media platforms, but he says his own
life experiences growing up in me that have helped him deal
with them better. The reason you see me still
sounding so confident and so comfortable is because I was
bullied to a level in my childhood and in my school life
that right now all these social media bullies, they are so small
and so tiny in front of that. So that trauma is so much bigger
than all these social media beliefs.
They are literally like why this guy is not getting affected, why
he's like living his life continuously.
And I always say the reason is because of course I I got
bullied to a level where I feel like this is so small to me
right now. This is just so funny.
I literally laugh on these comments, Shivam says.
He was often targeted in school because he was seen as what he
terms a soft guy, He says. His mannerisms were more
effeminate, and that in turn made him a target for bullies.
I still remember this experience where these bullies literally
tore my inner and that after that the inner was on the floor
and our English teacher enters and see that something happened.
Of course you see someone inner on the floor.
Of course, the first thing you will say is what was happening
here. You don't say a single word.
She literally ignored everything and that is something which will
always remain in my heart. I just feel bad for them because
I feel like as they literally failed in a humanity test.
I don't feel like they were humans at that point of time
because if they were teachers they should have noticed that
lot of things were happening with me.
If you raise your voice, these bullies will come back harder on
you. So that was my issue.
Like no one was there to support me.
Now of course, talk to my mom and I told her that this is all
happening, but it never stopped. Honestly, even if I say my mom
tried a school for a queer person in India, school is a
very shitty place to go. I don't have a good memories of
my school. That is the reason I'd never
talk about it on my social media. 25 year old Shivam says
He had his first photo shoot when he was in the eighth
standard. He then started posting fashion
related photos of himself on Facebook because he didn't know
of Instagram initially. He says he always got hate
comments on social media and was also dissuaded by people he
knew. I think when I started it was
not extreme but eventually when they saw that I am not stop it.
So whether it was my family or it was my friends or it was
anyone from my hometown, they were very, like, rude to me.
I know they all were laughing behind my back, somewhere fast,
somewhere laughing on my face. But I always knew that I have a
goal. Simple act like wearing a skirt.
It's still something that is frowned on in social media.
How challenging is it to be that on a public platform?
It is very, very challenging. I feel because a lot of people
who are putting their bad comments and opinion on us,
these opinions are not coming from them.
It is their mindset, which is not even their mindset.
It is something which is a concept which has been carried
forward to their mind that we cannot accept people like these.
That was doing it on like my terrace.
I still remember people were like, oh, you're just wearing
these clothes in your home. You will never do it out there
in the public because it takes a lot of guts and you will never
do it. And a lot of haters were like
that. And then I started wearing all
these clothes outside. So they were shocked.
So the comments got really, really extreme.
So they were like, OK, now you're doing it for attention
and you are not a man. You will never be a man.
It keeps getting extreme and extreme.
So there was a point where I was like, OK, I don't have to prove
anything to anyone. Now it's quite done.
What is it like? To be online and sort of have an
oversized online presence when you're in a smaller town.
And this ties in with the Pranshu case only because I
wonder if you're from a smaller town, is the bullying more
intense you feel in a smaller city than, say, in a bigger
metro? 101 person I think it's not
same. It's very extreme even with the
Pranshu case. The only reason I related to him
so much is because I come from Meerut.
I do feel that all the queer people who come from small
cities, all the LGBTQ plus community people who come from
small cities, they do face the extreme bullying and it is more
harder for us to come out of our shells and fight for a dream,
fight for our identities and our place.
It is honestly like three times harder for us because people are
really, really extreme, even the question they will ask you, but
I feel like in. Cities like Delhi, Mumbai, they
are more educated and they have a little bit more knowledge
about the community since rising in the ranks of influencers.
Shivam Bhardwaj says he has received a lot of support for
his videos in which he's seen in makeup and dresses in public
places. He says while many believe he's
doing this to inspire others, he says it's as much about pursuing
his dream of being an influencer and working in the fashion
industry. They think the reason I'm going
out in public. Wearing skirts are doing all
these crazy things that people do think that I'm a crazy person
to do all this stuff going out in public.
But the fact they think that is powerful to them because I
received endless DM saying oh the reason you go out and wear
all these clothes is the reason we are going out And they send
me the pictures and they wear skirts and they send me their
all the good pictures. I I feel happy.
But the fact is that I started. Just because I wanted to be
something so that people don't laugh on me and then it
continued. Continue to a motive where I
feel like of course I still want to make this my career.
It was never about, Oh my God, I'm a gay man and I will just
create videos. I I want to be a successful
content creator. Why not?
Every other state creator is doing it for money now, and if I
have a talent and I do crazy creative videos, so why not?
A lot of your videos are shot in public places.
I've seen videos of you in trains.
I'm just curious, how does that go because you face a very
hostile environment in the online space.
Does that ever mirror in the real?
World, This will sound really shocking because I know people
will be expecting me to say that I face the shows out in public.
But I have never and I wish I will never face.
And I think one of the reason can be this is not my word.
This is actually my videographer and my assistant word telling me
that I come out like the way I walk and the way I put my
attitude on in public. It's very strong.
People will take five times to come to you and talk shit at
that moment. Of course, when you are younger.
The kind of attitude I have right now, I didn't had that
like five years back. I feel like a lot of young queer
traitors and young queer people in my community.
They must be facing a lot because I feel like they have
started wearing all these cute, lovely clothes outside.
And I know people can be really rude.
I know I expose myself to an extreme level of public going
out in a Mumbai local train, walking on a gateway of India.
It was something which I never planned to do.
I just did it for fun. But thank God I never saved any
issue. Like Shivam, Bhardwaj said
earlier he doesn't take critical comments on social media too
seriously, but he admits they do get to him at times.
So I really don't focus on the extreme hate comments because I
know from where it is coming. But of course I will say it's
very hard to ignore. So I also know why a lot of
queer creators cannot ignore those comments.
I always. Try to ignore it and focus on
the positive part in my life and that has helped me a lot.
My mom is kind of a therapist to me.
If something get into my mind, which is really extreme, I
literally talk to my mom and she's always very helpful in
this situation. But even someone like Shivam
Bhardwaj, who's used to ignoring comments on post, says the
comments that came after Priyanshu's death, in which
people told him it was his turn next, really got to him.
Coming from a family where I also need to take care of my
family, my mom who has given her all.
The last thing I want to hear is you're wishing my death because
you are having fun doing that. So that was figuring to me.
So if you come on my family or my mom or on something so I
extreme wishing my pet, I will not be good to you.
Like, I am not kind to them. Shivam also says it's very
difficult to ignore comments when you're an influencer
because they're part of the feedback loop to understand
what's working with an audience and what's not.
It is very hard to do that, but I wish that all the queer
creators can do that. The moment you see your video is
getting viral, don't on your notifications.
Forget the love, forget the hate.
The moment we get viral, the hate goes to some extreme level.
Instagram has this one feature where you can literally add the
words which you don't want to see on your profile, Shivam
Bhardwaj says. Adding a hate word filter on
Instagram can slow the amount of hate comments coming his way.
He explains why. Only like 10% of haters have
that kind of time. They don't have anything good to
do in their life. Let this sit down and try keep
commenting again and again. But I feel like there are also
people who have some work to do. Even if they want to put a hate
comment, they will try it once they feel like, oh why can't I
use this slur in his comment section and they will give up on
it. They will not try like 10 times.
But then of course, Meta and Instagram can do better.
Shivam Bhardwaj says he has seen Priyanshu's online profiles
after his death and says it shouldn't be another case of a
queer life lost because of non acceptance and hate.
We still don't know exactly what he was feeling at that point of
time because he's a very confident person.
I saw his post, I saw his comment section the way he used
to reply. Even I don't reply these days to
my haters because I feel like I don't want to waste my energy on
them. But I love people who are still
replying because it takes a lot of energy.
To give back to the haters and of course a lot of time I just
feel bad that Pran show is gone. Our way is gone.
A lot of people we don't know they are also gone.
I wish we could like get their names because so many people who
are not social media creators, we don't even have any idea how
many people are already gone from the community because of
non acceptance and hate. Particularly when it comes to
queerness, and especially in a country like India, the digital
space is the safest space for most square people.
Primarily because you're surrounded by communities of
care that might not acknowledge your identity, that might not
acknowledge the specific needs you have.
You turn to the Internet very early on, One, to find yourself
and two, define sources of support.
So for the queer community, the Internet is not just a sort of
space for a sort of additive benefit that comes into their
life, but it's an extension of their social circle.
So for example, even for me, there's so many people who I
know what dear friends say who I first met online.
For so many queer people, Twitter, Instagram, Facebook
have been the initial germinating spaces for
friendships that have lasted lifetimes.
Particularly to ensure that there is a sense of community,
particularly for those folks who don't have supportive families.
Particularly in instances where people may not be in a large
city, or may not be in a space where there are a lot of
physical or in person queer events or queer communities, the
Internet becomes a source of solace.
And you've seen this especially after the pandemic.
I think the pandemic highlighted the importance of online spaces
as a source of community for all of us and for queer people in
particular. Because once we were all locked
down, the online space was the only safe space a lot of queer
people had. That's Anish Gawande explaining
the importance of the online world for the queer community.
Anish Gawande is the founder of Pink List India, the country's
first archive of queer friendly politicians.
He's also the. Director of the Dharashiko
Fellowship, Anish explains how the harassment of Priyanshi
Yadav is also a sign of how the once a relatively safe spaces
online are steadily eroding. He also talks about why he's
worried that this could bleed into the real world, and how
that could reverse the gains made by the queer community over
the years. When it comes to the abuse that.
Public platforms that users of public platforms face.
How? Different is the experience of
being queer and on a public platform like say, on Instagram
or even a Twitter. The benefits of being on it are
also about being open about who you are and what you stand for.
What is the sort of abuse that a queer person would typically
encounter in such spaces? So I think we've seen a pattern
of. Online abuse that's
multifaceted. I think initially there was
abuse that came primarily in the form of a lack of understanding
of queerness. It came from this understanding
of queerness as a Western construct, came from this sort
of idea that this is an import from the US and that it
shouldn't tarnish Indian society.
And it was more directed towards queerness as a whole rather than
towards specific identities or specific forms of queerness.
What you've seen in more recent years is a very specific
targeting of queerness. When it is presented in
conjunction with any other identity.
So you'll see that if queerness is politicized or mobilized in a
certain way, you get a double barrage of hate.
So if you speak out against the government and you're queer,
then you're going to get abused. That's double pronged.
So there's this way in which that abuse has also transcended
and transformed in the past few years into a kind of ritual that
is aware of the nuances of queerness and still is rejecting
queerness. The main point that I think is
important with online abuse and queerness is that can often get
deeply poster right. I think these are doubts about
your identity that you grew up with.
Most people coming out face a lot of doubts around whether
they actually are queer, whether they can come out, whether they
have some form of disease. And the trolling that you
receive often plays into these doubts, into these fears, into
these apprehensions. And particularly for younger
queer kids, this can be especially hard.
Because, like I said, right the online space is the only space
you have to turn to for sport. And if instead of reassurance
and kindness and compassion, you find hate and abuse and sort of
bullying, you're very likely to retreat further into your shell
and doubt your own queerness than you would have otherwise.
So Shivam Bhardwan. Spoke about seeing additional
abuse after the Pranchu case and he said that it it it was also
unique that the name kept coming up much more in his comments
after the incident and with hit obviously directed at him.
Is this the typical sort of experience?
No, I think what you've seen in the past is.
Like I said, right, a disaggregated form of hatred
that's been spread on the Internet that often has not
reached the levels of toxicity that you see currently.
What was truly heartbreaking to see was the fact that people are
celebrating the death of a child.
And I think this is something you really haven't seen before.
I think you definitely witnessed the fact that people are going
to say that queerness is a disease that needs to be cured.
But there is a modicum of empathy and compassion that's
existed that I see disappearing so rapidly and so sort of
prolifically that it's truly scary.
Most people, including the most queer phobic of people, will
draw the line at bullying or any form of abuse that gets to a
point where it's going to harm a child to the point of them
taking their own life. I think that's something that we
acknowledge is bad, regardless of whether you think the child
is queer or not. I work in politics.
I've been running election campaigns for a while and along
the lines also started Pink List India to get politicians to
support LGBTQ plus rights. And I will tell you in 2020,
right before the pandemic, when I went to Supriya Sule, whose
party was at the time in power and Maharashtra to ask for sort
of certain. Provisions to ensure LGBTQ plus
rights in the state. The one provision that stuck out
was a helpline for queer kids, and that was a three party
government at the time. It was a sort of tract,
tractitious coalition, but the one thing that everyone could
agree with across the board was that regardless of your thoughts
on queerness, queer kids don't deserve to be bullied to a point
where they even think of taking their own lives.
So I think there's a certain level of sensibility.
Both in political discourse and online discourse that used to
exist, that is slowly, or rather very quickly disappearing,
especially in the online space. And I'm really hoping it doesn't
trickle into the political space because it has the power to
really dramatically undermine any progress we've made in LGBTQ
plus rights currently and also has the ability to reverse some
of that progress in a way that we've never seen before.
What progresses do you see being reversed by something like this?
For example, we've made remarkable progress on trans
rights over the past decade after the Nulsa judgment of the
Supreme Court. We've had self identification
for trans persons being recognized as a fundamental
right. The vitriolic abuse, which
actually funnily enough, is imported from the West with
tough discourse that you see online today, is seeking to
undermine that progress on trans sites and actually argue that
trans folks should not have the ability or opportunity to self
identify with the gender that they identify with.
And that's bizarre, right? Because the argument made is
India is a culture that's only recognized 2 genders, when in
fact we've recognized more than two genders since time
immemorial. So you're seeing some of that
pushback that's coming currently in the form of online trolling
and abuse, which has the potential to escalate and
reverse that drugs, right? I think you're at a moment when
governments are incredibly sensitive to public opinion on
issues that get politicized and become politically valiant.
I think queerness so far has been politically A valiant.
It's not been politically sensitive, neither has it been
particularly politically attractive.
If you see such kind of discourse increase online, if
you see the amount of trolling increase to a point where there
is a sense that actually it might yield political benefits
to lean into that discourse, you're going to see political
parties actually try and outdo each other to present themselves
as anti LGBTQ plus or sort of protecting family rights.
And I think that's not a concern I have so far.
But there is a worrying pattern that's emerging within online
discourse that's leading to a language of dehumanization.
I think what you're seeing today, even after the death of
Pranchu, is a lack of care for the death of a child that can
only be spurred by someone not seeing them as a child at all.
And I think that's truly what is worrying.
How? Safe, would you say?
Public facing social media spaces.
For miners who identify as queer presently, then you know this is
the challenge. I think for many miners who
identify as queer, the online space is the only safe space
that they have. Unfortunately, our platforms
across the board have failed miserably to protect these
miners online. It is the responsibility of
platforms to ensure that they are protected online, and
platforms have failed resoundingly to do so.
What's particularly concerning is that the initial focus on
moderation and the ability to ensure that hate speech of any
kind is not tolerated on digital platforms is fading and fading
quickly across the board. You're seeing social media
platforms throw up their hands and say we believe in free
speech, and everything that's said here is what would be
allowed elsewhere as well. Even though that's not the case.
You cannot say so many of the things that are being said
online in person today because you would be penalized either
socially or by the rule of law. But online, when you're an
anonymous troll account commenting on someone else's
post, you have the liberty to say what you want to say.
And the fact that platforms aren't taking down those
comments, allowing the targeted and malicious bullying and
harassment of individuals, is incredibly worrying.
Is the experience of being a gay male influencer a very different
one from any other queer influencer?
Is the kind of abuse different in each category?
Absolutely. The abuse is no longer
monolithic. The abuse is very nuanced, with
an awareness of queer identities.
So gay men on the Internet are going to get a lot of trolling
for being a feminine They're going to get a lot of trolling
if they present in drag. They're going to get a lot of
trolling if they engage in any form of public displays of
affection. Queer women are going to get the
same harassment that women face but with.
And there's a trigger warning for rape.
But with threats, of course, of rape or conversion rape, you're
going to see trans folks get the kind of turf like rhetoric
thrown at them which says that you don't have a gender that you
should. I think you're seeing a
disaggregation of the abuse In a way that's even more worrying,
because it shows that these troll accounts of whoever's
behind them are aware of what queerness is of the sort of
diversity of queer experiences. And despite knowing about this
diversity of experiences, their response to to this knowledge is
not one of compassion or or greater understanding, but of
more enhanced or more sort of targeted ritual.
How do you say, advise, say younger people who are in this
domain where they're trying to, like you said, come online
because it's. That safe space.
At the same time, it's as unsafe maybe as the real world
difficult question. I would say there's no perfect
answer currently. I think there's certainly a need
for platforms to take accountability in the absence of
which I think where people across the board need to develop
new platforms that allow for that sort of safety to exist.
In the interim, I think there's a couple of things that can be
done. One is using the block button
liberally. I think there is an assumption
that you have to engage with someone online because they
responded to you and that is absolutely not the case.
I block multiple accounts every day with Glee because what I put
online is for people who I want to engage with, to engage with
and not for the world and all in sundries.
So if there is going to be an acknowledgement that such a
public space is not going to come with the protections that
come with any other public space, then I'm not going to
have to pretend like this is my little soapbox that anyone can
approach and yell at me. The second thing is, by turning
to support from organizations that know how to do this well, I
would recommend Yes We Exist, which is an organization that
runs an Instagram page that deals with a fair bit of cyber
bullying and cyber abuse and they have a lot of helpful tips
on their website. I would also recommend Nazaria
QFRG, the Queer Feminist Research Group, which is an
organization based in Delhi, which has a helpline that young
queer folks can turn to, And the Disks Data Institute of Social
Sciences, I call helpline, which is also really useful for those
in acute distress. So I think telling the support
is incredibly important. And I think finally, the third
thing is that young queer people are smart, and all of us.
I think they've definitely figured out a way to apply
pressure on systems and ways that we do not know how to do as
well as they do. So I think mobilizing, creating
online communities that can stand up for you and support you
when such trolling begins is incredibly important.
And then harnessing the power of those communities to actually
push for greater accountability mechanisms from institutions and
organizations and even government bodies is quite
important. Today's episode was produced by
Jayraj Singh and Anuja Singh. For a daily spotlight on people,
ideas and stories that matter. Subscribe.
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