When we read about acts of mob violence, we sit back in the comfort of our living rooms and say “that could never be me”. But given the right triggers, we can succumb. This is what happened with your online acquaintances.

To conclude, I leave you with a reference to William Golding’s Lord of the Flies.

An incident occurred between some tweeple resulting in one of them blocking one or more others. What followed was a spate of tweets with the hashtag #chetanblocks. Even you would have to admit that some of them were extremely witty; one got the sense that people were talking about much in the same manner as a bad movie, a bad performance in the sporting arena and so on.

Only Chetan Bhagat would be able to answer how many people used the @ tag thus forcing themselves on his timeline. But relative to the tweets with the hashtag referred to above, I feel it would be a miniscule percentage thus giving Chetan Bhagat a choice of not reading (or alternativey, reading at leisure) what other people were talking about..

Even Chetan Bhagat has seen the funny side of it – see his tweets of today “wife screamed at me this morning for no reason. felt like blocking her.” & “Mocks me, but v funny..the best of the saga.. http://bit.ly/6YWLnt (by @krishashok, derived fm prev xbox spoof). Captions on. ” The ability to laugh at oneself dents others’ fun in laughing at you. Maybe, he also realises that, for good or bad, this is a small price to pay for success – it is unlikely that you will see a #screwvvyes topic unless I attain some form of fame (which in itself is unlikely) or notoriety.

I feel that terming what went on yesterday as “mob mentality” is akin to making a mountain out of a molehill.