It is a familiar story now. A joyous event or a tragedy, both are equally kosher for influencers, especially those who inhabit Linkedin, to emerge from their tree branches and start circling around, looking for their next meal. In Hindi there is a saying—’Chita par roti sekna.’ It means—’to bake your bread on someone’s funeral pyre.’ We Indians are especially prone to this kind of behaviour. Democratisation of content creation has meant that mic thrusting newspersons are not the only thick skinned, irritating folks running around for opportunities. The ordinary office goer now feels that someone’s grief is legit material for monetisation. And what better way to do it than use the most trending ChatGPT filter aka Ghibli style art to depict shocked faces and burning fuselages?

In contrast, people from the aviation fraternity like myself and my colleagues and ex-colleagues have chosen to remain silent after the Air India crash. I have not seen a single post from any of us speculating about the crash, posting any kind of photo or uttering fake words of sympathy for people we didn’t know. Far more people die in car accidents, but you will not find cringefluencers writing about those, because it is not spectacular, it does not make it to prime time news. The moral compass has been completely discarded. These people are scavengers.