Laeequa

If Jam Safdar isn’t Your Jam these Days, You’re not one of us! When I first saw his memes and videos making rounds on social media, I imagined and worried for the art historians in the future, scratching their heads as they’d attempt to decipher what led to the suicide of our age’s artistic expression. I imagine them in absolute awe, gathered around a table, their heads clumped together, rigorously scrolling 20 years down the TikTok profile of the famous, most beloved, our very own desi content creator *drum rolls* Jam Safdar. I might be a bit jealous but entitle to be so for having spent years on learning content marketing, courses on visual arts and what not! He is obviously high above my humble critique and far better at it for having achieved the fame, respect, and ridicule – all at once in such a short span. I mean, forget surrealism, cubism or post-modernism—all those snobbish artistic movements–-this dude is way ahead of us in keeping his persona as basic as any character from Naseem Hijazi’s novel whilst establishing new, unprecedented standards of art (for the sake of entertainment). No, wait, I’m not done yet. Have a look at the following video/image and let me know if it doesn’t invoke the same level of curiosity as it did in me: [Insert the image/video] Just when we thought only a woman, riding on a tiger, could attract attention, inspire hawhayes, and make rounds on the internet, Jam did it with one strike and nailed 100s of shares, 1000s of comments, and don’t make me even look at the number of “hearts”. [insert another videoclip] This man, who I assume, was one fine morning sitting leisurely in his village, scrolling through the internet, watching TikToks, thought to himself: Hmm… try karan ich kera nuqsaan ay? [translation: hmm… What’s the harm in trying?] and came up with a video that went viral on the internet? uhhh?! This is as good as assuming Newton literally got bonked in the head by a falling apple, revealing unto himself the law of gravity. I mean, there has to be some thoughtprocess that underwent in creating this genius content, right? I’m now on the brink of pulling my hair out of my head. It’s not just me, though. People seem to be getting inspired just as well: And then there are those coiled in laughing fits, finding his content only observable by the brilliants; and to top it all, they have started addressing him as “Chacha”. I love it! While there are some that are making weird connections : And some, only confused, inspired, and also learning from the maestro: And then there are certainly some harsh comments, poking fun at this harmless little creative man: My final words would only be in admiration of his talent to lip-sync the songs/dialogues with a poker-face, and his spot-on moves that he pulls while his belly protrudes out, sometimes a naala peeks out from under his qamees. Man, I’m a follower now! If not the art historians in the future then the content marketers would definitely look up to his strategy for traffic growth. Whereas, a naqis insaan such as myself would keep laughing at the thought of boomers in utter shame and disgrace when they find out TikTok, Instagram, and Facebook have become a fulltime career opportunities for their beloved offsprings bearing degrees in important subjects while, on the hindside, spamming TikTok for the rest.