A large section of humankind, I am sure, missed a historic moment far up in space recently because someone else tried to “break” the internet.
You may have earlier seen the Hollywood version of the event in a badly made blockbuster, about how a crew of Earthlings jump on to a comet to change its path since it is on a collision course with Earth. Our heroes help save humanity as the comet’s impact would have ended civilisation as we know it.
Last week’s event, however, happened in real time and it was jaw-dropping, though there were no astronauts involved. After a decade of travelling, a spaceship landed a piece of robotic equipment on a comet hurtling through the silence of space billions of kilometres from our planet. It was a marvellous feat of scientific engineering.
Scientists believe that the comet could help give us a hint on the origins of the solar system as the material beneath the surface of the comet has remained unchanged over the past four billion years or so, unlike the chemical changes that occurred on planets. Comets are also believed to have brought water to the planets and organisms to our world that may have helped start life.
Why some of us may have missed this momentous event in space is because back on Earth, Kim Kardashian, the celebrity who stars in a reality show and who created the milkshake frenzy three years ago in Dubai, decided to do something to smash the internet, by banking on what is behind her, so to speak.
As we now know, Kim posed without a stitch, on the cover of a publication called the Paper magazine and that is what distracted the attention of millions of our species, who are still discussing it rather than debating the more important things happening around us.
On Twitter, this provocation by Kim went by the hashtag #breaktheinternet and at one point, there were 283 tweets per minute about this stunt.
I am not exactly sure why Kim is such a powerful celebrity because as far as I know she does not do much, but despite that she has 25 million followers on Twitter and an equal number of fans on Instagram.
She just has to take a ‘selfie’ and post it online and there is a massive frenzy on social media churned up by her fans. Incidentally, Time magazine calls the new trend she has propagated as the “belfie”.
Critics of the media say it was the magazine’s last-ditch effort to attract readers as periodicals across the US and Europe are quietly shutting down the presses. But this is no way to try to stay relevant in a time of dwindling readership, say media experts. Granted that the role of newspapers and magazines is not only to educate the readers, but also to entertain, but this is ridiculous, the experts say.
Why people should be shocked at Kim’s antics is a mystery, because she was at the centre of even more outrageous incidents in the past. But this time, the internet reacted with humour and hilarious memes and she became the butt of jokes. Meme, as you know, is a concept or an idea, a catchphrase or even a photograph that goes viral on the internet.
The funniest memes I have seen are those that liken Kim’s picture to a particular brand of donuts.
There are others that put Kim on Mount Rushmore along with the stately heads of former American presidents.
One brilliant meme has superimposed Nicolas Cage’s face on Kim’s body. The award-winning actor, as we know, has had some ridiculous roles in his career.
Luckily for humanity, Kim could not break the internet despite her best efforts and the hashtag #cometlanding got far more tweets.
Mahmood Saberi is a freelance journalist based in Dubai.
