Saba: New Orleans, Qamar, Azad... What's the Deal?
Saba News Dump: Celeb Virtue Signaling, Book-Burning Art, and Cookie Monster Mayhem – What a Week!
Okay, seriously, what is going on? I just scrolled through the news feed and it's like the universe is playing a cosmic joke on us. Saba this, Saba that... enough already.
Celeb Savior Complex
First up, we got Saba Qamar, the UN ambassador, virtue signaling in blue for World Children’s Day. Don't get me wrong, child marriage is a horrific problem, especially in places like Pakistan. Nineteen million child brides? That's not a statistic; that's an apocalypse. But forgive me if I'm not exactly thrilled by another celebrity "raising awareness." See Saba Qamar goes blue for World Children’s Day for more details.
"Every child has a right to learn, to grow up healthy, to live in a safe environment and to have a voice..." Blah, blah, blah. We all know this already! The real question is: what is she actually doing about it? Throwing on a blue dress and posting on Instagram doesn't exactly dismantle centuries of patriarchal oppression, does it? I mean, let's be real, is this about helping children, or is it about boosting Saba Qamar's brand? I'm just asking questions here.
And UNICEF patting her on the head, calling her "courageous and influential"? Give me a break. Courageous would be going after the religious leaders and politicians who perpetuate this garbage. Influential would be, I don't know, actually changing something instead of just mouthing platitudes.
Literary Arsonist or Deep Thinker?
Then, we pivot HARD to the art world, where Saba Hasan is apparently torching books and calling it "sculpture." This exhibition, "jo gayab hai, aur hazir bhi" (which, according to Google Translate, means "what is absent, and also present"), is supposed to be some profound exploration of fragility, memory, and time. Right.
Here's a quote from the curator, Neha ‘Zooni’ Tickoo: "Saba begins with the very familiar, the personal, handy structure of a book as her passage between strife and peace and as an instrument of gradual catharsis."
Translation: "We're trying really, really hard to make this sound deep, even though it's just someone mutilating books."
Look, I get the impulse to rebel against the written word. I do. But burning books? That's a little on the nose, isn't it? I mean, aren't we supposed to be protecting books? Isn't that, like, the opposite of what artists should be doing? Or am I just some philistine who doesn't understand the subtle nuances of literary arson? Maybe.
Cookiepocalypse Now
And finally, because the universe hates us, we get a dissertation on cookie notices from NBCUniversal. Seriously? This is news? Apparently, they're updating their privacy policy to explain how they track every single thing you do online. Cookies, web beacons, embedded scripts, ETags... it's like a goddamn alphabet soup of surveillance.
They say it's to "improve the content and user experience." I say it's to sell your soul to the highest bidder.
They even have "Social Media Cookies" that let Facebook and Twitter track you outside of their platforms. So, basically, you can't even take a dump without Mark Zuckerberg knowing about it.
And the best part? They give you a bunch of "options" to opt out, which are about as effective as pissing into a hurricane. You have to go into your browser settings, delete Flash cookies (do people even use Flash anymore?), and then opt out of every single advertising provider individually. As if anyone has time for that!
Offcourse, if you "deactivate cookies", some parts of the Services may not function properly. How convenient!
What the Hell is Going On?
So, what's the common thread here? Saba Qamar's empty gestures, Saba Hasan's book-burning "art," and NBCUniversal's cookie monster mayhem... It's all the same damn thing: a bunch of meaningless noise designed to distract us from the real problems. Celebs pretending to care, artists pretending to be deep, and corporations pretending to respect our privacy. It's enough to make you want to scream. Then again, maybe I'm just in a bad mood.