The Ascent of the Homo Vulgaricus

If Australopithecus is seen with a stone, and Homo habilis with a broken branch, then the Homo Vulgaricus (c. 2025) will be seen in history books, many centuries later, with a smartphone. If stone and spear and branch were meant to protect the ancient man and attack if the need be, then the smartphone is the new weapon with which the Homo Vulgaricus lives now. He is out there in airports, malls, trains, churches, temples, beaches, bus stops and shops, talking loudly, video calling, recording, watching videos in volumes meant for stadia, and playing online games ad nausea.

Homo Vulgaricus has wiped out culture, that sophisticated term meant for collective behaviour and creative imagination. The very word culture itself is so cultured. There is a certain dignity and quietude to it which now stands at the mercy of the Vulgaricus. Margaret Mead is widely believed to have said that a healed femur bone was the ultimate sign of civilization for it denoted that a human being was looked after and cared for. The smart phone, pinnacle of our material civilization that keeps time, maintains records, sends you reminders, tracks your footsteps and identifies plants and butterflies, unfortunately does not care for the human next to you. It freezes you into a certain variety of heartlessness that makes you record an accident and a mishap than help the victim. It has made us so mannerless that we can video-call someone from a restaurant or a train with ten other unsuspecting faces in the screen.

Consent died a slow death in this culture-lessness which makes everyone shoot videos and click pictures randomly. The Malayalam film, Vikruthi, based on a true story of the collective maniac of recording strangers, did not teach the Malayali anything as can be seen from the sad suicide of a humiliated man in Kerala, who was recorded in a bus by a woman. It is a grim reminder of the tragic consequences of pseudo smartphone activism.

I have a particular bone to pick with the Vulgaricus man in churches and temples. The idea is no longer participation in the Qurbana or an aarti but also record keep. So he hoists the phone like his club and assaults those around, distracting them all to look at his screen as he captures the perfect moment of the priest and the pujari. It is not the prayer but the performance of it, and the relaying thereafter to the whole wide world that is going to earn him his punya. Even in places where recording is strictly prohibited, there will be that one smart Alec who insists on it, leading to scuffle and scolding ruining it for everyone around. ‘I record therefore I am’ seems to be the motto here.

Homo Vulgaricus is distracted, and will distract others. No longer for you a silent admiring of the russet skies with waves on your feet, without an entreaty to click a picture. Even as aquamarine waters glisten at your pedicured toes, the stress is on the visual experience of it and its faithful capture than the tactile experience of foam on your feet or sand slipping from under. I was recently at a café perched atop a cliff facing the sea and the collective neurosis to make Tiktok videos and capturing the perfect plunge of the sun into the sea, left me pale.

Homo Vulgaricus is defined by his constant need for validation. Every blow of the nose is recorded and shared as a story and a status. He keeps track of the counts of likes and comments, followers and unfollows. It is the burden of the modern times, that we are to bother more about seem to be living a good life than living it per se. If we thought that we have shed our tribalism and moved into a modern, individualistic cocoon, I have every reason to believe that we have not. What we wear, what we eat and where we eat are matters for strangers on the internet than our own happiness. Have you even lived if you haven’t tasted the viral biscoff cheesecake? Have you even visited Delhi if you haven’t eaten biryani at Karim’s? The questions Human Vulgaricus pose throw the best of us into the cesspool of existential doubt.

Homo Vulgaricus has made manners and morals, both obsolete. It is what has normalized online pornography, and substance use disorders. As the lines between private and public blur, we are driving each other into a vulgarism that is getting difficult to control or dismantle. As Oscar Wilde said in Dorian Gray, …'all vulgarity is crime.' We mouth about mindfulness more these days, but are strangely plunging into mindless exhibitionism in terms of location tags, brand tags, and selfie points that obsess with the self a little more than ever. The front camera is the culprit, dare I say. It somehow has defeated a certain consensus around looking away from self and looking at the larger picture.

Culturally we are at cross roads. We have conflicting value systems with the gadgets and the algorithm loaded on these gadgets. We need to build conversations around cultivating a more sensitive behaviour, especially while in public, causing the least annoyance and disturbance to those around us. Let everyone breathe a little easy and may vulgarity die.