MUMBAI: Actress Yashashri Masurkar says that reels are becoming the future and this is quite worrisome. She adds that social media presence has become mandatory if you want to be successful, which is not right.

“Seeing the current situation, it looks like it and I am worried about such a future. Talking about social media presence being required, I want to ask who makes those rules. People have been watching films, creating and performing arts even before social media. If your work gets noticed, it doesn’t matter what social media presence you have. Unfortunately, it is made into a compulsion which is very weird to me,” she says.

She adds, “Today, everyone is expected to have a YouTube channel and an amazing social media account. I feel it’s going to get more serious in future. However, for me, reels are
an illusion. False sense of acceptance, and approval. With AI it’s going to get horrible because we wouldn’t know what's real and what's fake.”

She says, “It is making people dumb. I have seen people consuming cringe-worthy content. It’s making people into zombies. Once you open a reel, you automatically waste a few hours on the platform. People also benefit from good content but how much of it do we watch?”

Talking about herself, she says, “A YouTube channel is not everyone’s cup of tea. Most of us are making not-so-exceptional content. I just don’t see a point in it. Children are more focused towards making videos and earning money through it rather than being encouraged to study a subject or master a skill. This automatically makes us dependent on machines to do this work because we will be good for nothing.  Plus right now it’s so much pressure when you have to add making videos to your to-do list every day. Isn’t it?”