Curse words and OTT content

Few years back, television was the most talkative member of the family and cinema was considered the most impactful medium of the society.

But today, in the age of Over the top (OTT) platforms, may be the given statement is not so true anymore. No doubt, television is still there at the most popular place in the house but people are not that much interested in its talking. Similarly, in the case of movies, no one can deny their effect but OTT content is giving them pretty tough competition.

Everyone is busy with their mobile devices, not only indulging themselves in social media or games but also in various streaming services. OTT platforms/ over the top services, where content flow directly from the internet rather than in traditional ways like cable and theatre, is the new trend.

There are so many streaming services and launching new ones every day that it is very hard to keep track on them let alone the content they are producing Indian television is not considered as a mature medium, but it was doing its talking among families so people of all ages were part of its audience.

Moreover, its content is regulated by TRAI and BCCC. CBFC (Central Board of Film Certification) keeps a check on movies and certifies them for the audience in India. OTT platforms don’t fall under any of these regularity bodies and according to I&B regulating OTT content is a lot more complicated than tv and film content.

Everyone is having one-on-one communication with their streaming services where they know that no one is judging them for what they are watching. Streaming service is only going to judge you, your choice of content or amount of time you are spending on it, to make further suggestions according to your previous watching pattern.

India is a big market for online streaming services and India’s youth is top consumer of their material. So, they produce Indian content on regular basis.

A large number of audiences, who are consumers of these services, believe that content produced by OTT platforms is much better than television material or the job mainstream Bollywood is doing these days. Considering the content quality of Indian television and mainstream films for the last few years, this fact can’t be denied completely.

Online streaming services produced content is different from other medias in many ways, one being the use of harsh language. The content of these services has hard language, many times to the point of vulgarity. Curse words and swears are part of every language and people use them in their conversations time to time. But these series have swear words to the extent where you might get exhausted listening to them.

Sometimes, after binge watching an Indian web series people feel like that, they were listening to cussing for so long that they need a psychological break from bad words.

Most of the audience of these series’ is young, therefore they absorb and adapt this language very fast and effectively, and that is not a very good sign for talking sense of our youth.

In these series, they don’t only use popular swear words, but they also get creative about them. It seems their characters can’t deliver an impactful dialogue without using one and two or a stream of curse words. They even use such language for humorous purpose which is causing a decline in the quality of comedy content.

No one can deny that curse words are part of almost all languages but these streaming services’ series are exaggerating it to the level where it is becoming exhausting and will loose their impact pretty soon if they will be in so much abundance.

Some people think that there should be a check on this content, that it should be regulate, certified and even censored. Other people disagree on it because online media thrive on its liberty and for the place for everyone and everything.

Considering the fact that how CBFC sometime act like censor board rather than certification board for the films, liberty of these platforms could be also be compromised with any kind of regularity.

So, when these platforms suggest that they will regulate their own content according to age of their customers that is understandable because their biggest plus is independent and blunt opinions that they don’t want to lose their power.

However, they should keep this fact in their minds that their customers consider their content more realist, bold and blunt than the content of Indian tv or films. Now if they will use such language too much and only limit their boldness to curse words; then it will definitely bounce back at a certain point because mostly normal people don’t indulge in so much cussing in their daily life all the time.

Content producers must keep the balance, so that every time a viewer watches some OTT Indian series, it won’t leave a mark as too crass to even tolerate or to enjoy.