Reporter's diary: Brevity of an emoji that aptly describes this moniker

CHENNAI: Tamil Nadu police loves assigning monikers to crime suspects. The press release and even court records, in most cases, have monikers of suspects — ‘Bonda’ Rajesh, ‘Apple’ Krishnaveni and ‘Oil’ Balaji to name a few.

Why such names are assigned and whether such a practice should be continued is an argument we can have another day. For now, let’s suggest that monikers can be assigned to any suspect accused of a crime, irrespective of their socioeconomic status.

In the last couple of months, many video creators have faced criminal cases. It shouldn’t be a surprise when the term ‘YouTuber’ itself is used as a moniker in police records. A YouTuber, who was recently booked by the police, came to court dressed in a suit, similar to the one worn by the protagonist of the movie, KGF (even the same colours). He had come to sign bail papers and put out an Instagram reel of the whole thing – complete with background music and all.

In the past, cops have booked youths from low-income groups for making reels outside police stations. In this case they might not, as several users in Twitter pointed out the presence of an aide of a politician with the YouTuber in question.

The Twitter-verse has already come up with unprintable monikers for our ‘Plastic Rocky’. It’s unfair that in the world of emoticons, the sequence of events with ‘Plastic Rocky’ can be described with a single emoji ()while the English language warrants at least a few words for a retort.