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Social Capital is the New Flu
The Morning Standard
|May 25, 2025
Today's social capital spreads faster than influenza. You sneeze out a selfie, and voila! 10,000 souls have been infected with admiration, envy, and inexplicable urges to dye their hair.
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Fame, in the old days, required effort. Now, it requires Wi-Fi. Once upon a time, if you wished to be seen, you had to climb a mountain, fight a war, or marry into royalty. You had to do something! Now? Just wiggle your hips, switch on a ring light, and surrender yourself to Lord Algorithm to launch you into stardom.
Consider the spectacle of the 2025 MET Gala, a pageant not of nobility but of notoriety. Shah Rukh Khan, draped in Sabyasachi's opulence, stood not merely as an actor but as an emblem of a nation's aspirations, his arms outstretched in a pose that sought to encompass both the adulation of the crowd and the silent approval of countless online observers.
His presence, while commanding, was curated a performance for the algorithm as much as for the audience.
This story is from the May 25, 2025 edition of The Morning Standard.
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