COVID -19: How are Nagas coping with lockdown?

Social media in the times of social distancing

 

Rebecca K Kits
Dimapur| March 27

 

If you have been wondering about the recent posts on Instagram with the caption ‘Untill tomorrow,’ or stories with tags nominating people for the same, there’s more where it came from.

With the 21- day lockdown in force and many others in quarantine even before the nationwide lockdown was announced, people are turning to the only source of information and entertainment available- social media.

The Morung Express brings you some of the ways in which Nagas are coping during the time of lockdown.

 

Interaction-gram

Instagram is a favourite among the Nagas. From OOTDs to About Today and TBT hashtags, it has gained popularity over the past few years.

 

Many influencers and popular icons have also been making use of this platform to provide their followers a peek into their lives. But with the lockdown, the posts are becoming more interactive. Forced to maintain social distancing in real life, Nagas are turning to Instagram to connect with each other online.

 

Instagram is now filled with interactive posts that involve participation from the followers as well.

 

One such challenge that is gaining momentum is the ‘until tomorrow’ challenge.  In this challenge, a person posts an embarrassing photo of them accompanied by the caption ‘until tomorrow’ and tags the person who challenged her/him to do the same. Anyone who likes the post will receive the challenge and they have to carry it forward.

 

No one knows who started it and when but Instagram is surely full of weird and embarrassing photos of people, a scene we’d normally never see, considering the fact that Instagram is the hotbed of fashion, beauty and almost perfection photos.

 

People are also starting chains in their Instagram stories with the ‘draw yourself’ challenge or drawing different fruits like an orange and banana, tagging their friends to do the same.

 

Nomination challenges like the bingo challenge, #tproll challenge etc are also being started. Instagram also has story effects like the ‘gesture’ and ‘tag someone’ making waves.

 

While most of these challenges are global, some went local with their own ideas. Recently, singer Alobo Naga was also seen taking part in the #KabalianCookoff challenge started by MedoleuLasuh and Veku for their group of friends.

 

“I’ve been tagged in a lot of Instagram challenges lately, but I did not want to get on board. But the lockdown got the better of me and I tried a word game challenge which was surprisingly interesting. More educational and interactive challenges would be fun,” said Kivi.

 

Deprived of football action for almost a month, the global #tproll challenge offered some respite for football fans. It started as a stay at home challenge and many people enjoyed filming themselves juggling a toilet paper roll. It was difficult but I did it for the cause, said Rinsit.

 

What’s up, WhatsApp?

People have found a way to kill boredom over the past few days on WhatsApp, another popular app among the Nagas. Taking a break from forwarding fake news or doctored videos, some of the latest messages being circulated include the ‘word jumble challenge’ where one has to find out two opposite words from one word with jumbled letters. Another is the one with emojis depicting movie names which the recipient has to guess. A similar challenge is the word guess challenge using only specific letters.

 

A dare thread is also doing the rounds where the sender dares the recipient to write 7 truths about her/him. They then send a screenshot of their answers and the sender posts them on their WhatsApp story.

 

Prayer chains have also been started by people in the state. Believers are making use of WhatsApp to share prayer points and worship at different places at the same time. One such example is the UESI chain prayer schedule for March 27 during the COVID-19 lockdown which allotted 2:00 pm to 3:00 pm for Nagaland.

 

Besides these, Facebook challenges like the fastest finger challenge where you have to take a screenshot of moving objects in a fast paced video are also being shared by people.

 

Whether you join them or not, these challenges and interactive posts are helping ease the boredom and taking people’s minds off the fear and uncertainty to some extent.