In Reel So Real: How Media and Al Are Shaping-and Shaking-the Moral Compass of a Generation

Centuries ago, Plato cautioned against drama that corrupts the soul. Freud spoke of catharsis through art. But in today's world, content no longer heals, educates, or uplifts. It seduces. It distracts. It distorts. Filters replace reflection. Virality replaces virtue. The result? A generation more attuned to reels than to reality, more loyal to screens than to values.

- RUCHI CHABRA

We are witnessing a quiet crisis. From OTT platforms and YouTube to online gaming and AI-generated deepfakes, our young citizens are growing up in an unregulated ocean of influence - often addictive, occasionally criminal, and almost always value-neutral. In Udaipur, a man brutally murdered a woman and burned her body - later confessing he was inspired by Drishyam and Crime Patrol. In Delhi, teenage boys formed a gang called Badnaam, imitating gangster portrayals from Pushpa and Bhaukaal, and stabbed a rival - all to shoot a reel. In Karnataka, six men printed fake currency after copying Shahid Kapoor's character in Farzi. In Maharashtra, a 17-year-old almost died performing a reel-themed suicide stunt gone wrong.

These aren't isolated anomalies. They are symptoms of a deeper cultural descent where fiction is no longer watched passively but enacted tragically. The screen, once a window into imagined worlds, has become a mirror scripting reality.

And it starts early. Cartoons like Shinchan, Doraemon, Motu Patlu, and Oggy and the Cockroaches model disobedience, mockery, and shortcut culture - rarely kindness, seldom hard work. In parallel, online games like PUBG, Fee Fire, and GTA V normalize violence, deceit, and virtual crime. Most come with unsupervised chats that serve as breeding grounds for bullying, grooming, and dares with real-world consequences.