Do you wish to see your video go viral on social media and achieve overnight popularity? If so, the science behind how to go viral on social media is very simple. For this, you don’t have to be creative. All you have to do is criticise wellknown personalities or post semi-nude pictures od yours on social networking sites.

Undeniably, these techniques will help you to get your content trending on YouTube.

These days, this is how most of the people get overnight recognition in the media. In a bid to win public attention and getting more likes and shares, many content users seem to be posting videos loaded with lewd gestures, dialogue with double meaning and seminude photographs, violating the media’s community guidelines.

Although social media has been one of the best mediums for building confidence, advertising products, socialising with people around the world and doing research, many social networking sites like TikTok, Twitter and YouTube have been used as a platform to bully and damage someone’s reputation as well. Yet, lawmakers do not seem to be paying attention to the negative impact of pornography and cyber bullying.

Following the COVID-19 lockdown in the country, the Chinese video-sharing app Tik- Tok, owned by Bytedance, took many Nepalis by storm. And I was no exception. I joined Tik- Tok two months ago for entertainment purpose.

Unfortunately, I ended up being a victim of body shaming and objectionable comments.

Nasty comments almost drove me to depression. Although, most of the apps state that obscenity and abusive behaviour are not allowed, they don’t take effective action against the violator of community guidelines.

It coerced me to quit TikTok.

Similarly, a few months ago, a popular actress, Puja Sharma, became the victim of body shaming when she could not answer the right number of provinces and districts of Nepal in an interview. In the comment section, many people made fun of her teeth. She was called an actress “with fangs”. It made me feel as if online media is there for people to judge our appearance, height and size.

The reason why people upload explicit videos on social media is because when their content is not a trending topic, they go for an easy option, which is posting semi-nude videotapes and delivering dialogue with derogatory meaning.

Edited and incomplete videos could create confusion and spread lies among viewers.

They also cause mental stress, discomfort and anxiety.

A negative comment can lead someone to depression. Therefore, people must be encouraged to make constructive criticism in a civilised way.