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Urban poor or not, Gayatri Jayaraman touched a nerve

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Riddhi Sharma
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"Objectively and relative to a vast majority of Indians, they aren’t “poor” at all. But they’re certainly hungry and broke a lot." writes Gayatri Jayaraman in her Buzzfeed article.

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While the article has been getting a lot of eyeballs. It has stirred debates, opinions and controversies in the online world, with major publications and authors coming in the open to refute the claims made by the writer. Some of them are also showing support, while many have launched personal rebukes against the author.

What I like the most about the entire upheaval is how a phrase, which was not directly political or religious, still managed to stir a debate around it across the nation. There's a section of youth supporting the idea, a section rebuking her for naming them poor while one trying to understand the idea and definition of poor.

The very fact that the written "word" still holds so much power made me write this.

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As a digital case study, the phrase #urbanpoor as per last checked data, was used 94 times and retweeted 61 times. With an average mention of 8 every minute.As per the Social Mention report, the #urbanpoor has been used on an 8 minutes avg. with a 50% strength. The phrase has been used by 90 unique authors and part of 61 retweets. Which means, Gayatri's article has managed to do exactly what she had intended.

urban poorIn our times of viral content, as a digital news piece, the phrase "urban poor" has certainly gone viral.

While, Irshad Daftari from Scroll.in goes on to call the urban poor syndrome a lack of judgement rather than a state of being. He writes, "These are kids in their early twenties, who are living in times of abundance, have probably not seen a recession. These are young, urbane, educated young men and women who are probably working in jobs that weren’t dreamed of 10 years ago, but somehow can’t make it through a month without running out of their money. Are they trying to keep up with the Joneses or the Kardashians?"

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While one more article on Youth Ki Awaaz tackles both side of the article, Titas De Sarkar writes, "What both these articles completely disregard is the ever-growing population of the youth who are neither the ‘urban poor’ in the strict sense of the term nor are those whose lunch comes from Le Pain Quotidian."

Another one on The Auctorly Team  went on to talk about the politics around the word "poor". They go on to defend and explain Gayatri's stand, it says, "Her alleged crime was to empathize with entitled brats who can't eat at canteens like the rest of us and must buy fancy cars, clothes, and shoes to keep with their version of the Joneses, that is, their friends. "

Gayatri Jayaraman recently explained the concept of "The Intellectual Poverty" on the Daily O. What remains undettered is her spirit. She has been combatting and standing tall to her opinions and piece on social media. Here are a few tweets doing the round:

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Her article has received criticism, acclaim, answers and opinions from news18, QuartzIndia, Livemint and so on. Whatever it may be, Gayatri Jayaraman, you have definitely stirred the right emotions and hit the right nerve. A good content piece is only successful if it manages to get the house talking. Urban Poor or not, you have created a space for conversation and engagement. This certainly can be a brilliant case of a "good digital content."

In the online space, no matter who has the last word, remember who started it first. But looks like, she is not here to give up.