Actor and television host Bala Ganapathi William, better known as BGW has earned the wrath of netizens after posting a video of himself singing the popular Sid Sriram song, Thalli Pogathey on his YouTube channel a few days ago.
BGW is seen singing AR Rahman tune in his car without music. He appears to be experiencing every emotion splayed in the lyrics of the tune. The video has gained 2,700 views in 4 days.
Two days ago, BGW released another video claiming the Thalli Pogathey clip was a social experiment to talk about cyberbullying. “You have to be ashamed of yourself to bully someone like that. That’s why people are commit suicide-ing (sic),”
BGW says the 40-odd comments on his post amount to cyberbullying. There’s no denying that. It is important to remember that BGW is two things that most Malaysian Indian victims of cyberbullying are not.
Firstly, BGW is a known personality, the number of views on his posts are directly proportional to his popularity, and we all know there’s no such thing as bad publicity. Secondly, and most importantly, he is a MAN.
To compare the negative comments on his post, mostly dealing with defecation, to the cyberbullying that thousands of Malaysian Indian women face due to their choice of dressing, companionship and even type of alcohol consumed, is a stretch. To put it in perspective, nobody commented on what he was wearing, his appearance, his sex life, his private parts nor his family. BGW also didn’t have his picture circulated in various WhatsApp groups, captioned Kedah Vandi. For many Malaysian Indian women, however, this isn’t the case.
The negative comments faced by BGW is but the shiny, minuscule bit on the tip of the iceberg of cyber bullying. Most of us who have been on Malaysian Indian troll pages know what lies underneath, and how nasty people can get.
The negative comments faced by BGW is but the shiny, minuscule bit on the tip of the enormous iceberg of cyber bullying.
Interestingly, 4 years ago BGW posted a video of himself singing the same song, probably to the karaoke version of the same song. That video is also laden with negative comments from netizens. It did, however, fetch 26,000 views.
The bigger question is, does BGW’s posts have anything to do with cyberbullying or is it a mere publicity gimmick?
Follow us on Instagram, Facebook or Telegram for more updates and breaking news.
