The Great Indian Crab-Bucket

I was re-reading Terry Pratchett's Night Watch the other day - I have plenty of time these days because like I mentioned in my last blog post, I am officially unemployed at the moment. Anyway, so I was reading and I came upon this phrase:

"...that gnawing, nerve-sapping hatred that only the mediocre can bring to bear..."

And it struck me: we live in the Age of Mediocrity. Look around. The average is being celebrated as exceptional. It's everywhere. From self-proclaimed LinkedIn "thought-leaders" who say the most banal things with the air of imparting wisdom, to influencers quick to "be inspired by" the original content of other creators, we have somehow evolved into a culture that rewards the mediocre and unoriginal. And should, by some trick of fate, a truly talented person does find some deserved success, the mediocre are quick to tear them down. Like crabs in a bucket, pulling them down, climbing on their back, hoping to get out before they do. Sometimes with a subtle "No offence, but..." followed by the most offensive tripe you can imagine. At other times, simply by manufacturing reasons to hate them.

It wasn't always like this. I remember way back in college, freelancing for a small newspaper, nay editorial supplement really, called Channel Y. The editorial team were all young people, the same age or a little older than me. And every single one of them was whip-smart. Cockily so, even, but you couldn't deny the intelligence and talent in the room. I made a lot of friends there and one of the reasons was that we saw and respected the smarts in each other. Oh, we were all ambitious as only a bunch of smart-arsed teenagers can be, but none of us was threatened by the rest. None of us tried to pull each other down professionally. If your story idea was approved, everyone in the room knew and accepted that the reason was simply that it was good. And then, they tried harder to pitch a better idea next week and get it approved. You took the licks, you never begrudged others their success and you pushed yourself to do better so you could succeed as well.

That was my formative experience, so now, to see a world where people are busy tearing each other down instead of creating and shamelessly stealing ideas, words, imagery, credit from others to cover their own mediocrity, is bewildering as hell. Everyone wants their sixty seconds of fame and the acceptable way to earn it, it seems, is by hook or crook, talent being optional.

I recently gave up reading a book some sixty pages in because the author infuriated me with his blatant plagiarism. I won't name names, but suffice to say it's an Indian grim-dark fantasy series and the author has verbatim lifted entire scenes, leave alone analogies, from Terry Pratchett's Guards! Guards! along with casually copying Sylvia Plath' fig tree analogy. I hate to even say this about a fellow Indian author - god knows publishing is hard enough without being criticised by your peers - but where is the originality? The integrity? The instances are far too similar for it to be an accident, for the author not to have known. But like a friend pointed out, what about his agent? His editor? Everyone else who read that book before it was published? How has everyone cast a blind eye to this? And the funniest part of this, is that this very same author waxes eloquent on his socials about how the AI-generated covers of other well-known authors are something to be reviled. They are, but in this case it's a bit of a pot-kettle situation, no?

Before we declare with holier-than-thou expressions that AI can only ever generate slop and brain-rot, maybe we should ask ourselves if we as humans, are generating anything different? Because the answer so far is clearly no. And it all comes down to whom you reward - with your attention, your money and your praise.

I hear creators justify their unoriginal content by saying they are just "following trends". Sure, but where is your take on the trend? Or does a different face, doing exactly the same thing, saying exactly the same words from another reel qualify it as somehow drastically different? We have gotten too complacent in the face of all this and the talentless and the thieves are taking advantage of it. We are the same country that relentlessly mocked Anu Malik for stealing pop music tunes in the 90s. Look at us now, all grown up, explaining earnestly to each other that "it's called sampling actually, everyone does it in the West also, it's fine".

Is it? IS IT?