Foul play: Twitter calls out Shahveer Jafry for 'joking' about domestic violence

There’s a thin line between cracking a joke and being outright offensive and YouTuber, actor Shahveer Jafry has crossed that line last night with a video that trivialises domestic violence.

The said clip sees him “jokingly” choke his wife while she’s asleep, only to find out that he’s been pressing the pillow on the wrong side of the couch. The video ends with Jafry kissing his wife on her cheek and leaving the room.

Although deleted now, several people have shared screen recordings of the clip to call the vlogger out on his “insensitive” take. He also faced backlash for jumping on a “foreign trend” without understanding his audience.

 “41.3k likes on a video where Tiktoker, Shahveer Jafry, chokes his wife as a joke in a country where domestic violence is rampant and women actually get killed by their husbands! My blood is boiling,” wrote a user.

There were several users who defended the Barwaan Khiladi actor too and claimed that his wife consented to be in the video. However, this user thinks the wife’s consent only proves that both of them are equally insensitive and ignorant about their influence.

“I don’t care if Shahveer's wife consented to everything. It basically means both of them have 0 brain cells. Such stunts are extremely insensitive considering the type of country we live in and especially for someone who has so much influence,” read a tweet.

Another user pointed out that while Jafry’s friends and fans are claiming that the vlogger’s content is dark humour and that people should learn to take a joke, they should also realise that his audience is not those who engage with dark humour on a daily basis.

“People seeing that Shahveer video and saying it's all good fun and should be taken as dark humour, need to understand Shahveer's core audience isn't dark humour enthusiasts or people who even understand it. He's a person whose videos are sent in WhatsApp family group forwards,” wrote a user, adding how triggering the video can be for actual victims and survivors of domestic violence.

“Imagine if someone who actually goes through domestic violence on daily basis sees this, it can be a trigger for them and they will feel more helpless about their situation watching it be so normalised. People finding it funny need to check their privilege and thank God for they are not facing something like this or ever have to,” they added.

The user concluded by saying that content creators should use their medium to bring change and not “post stuff that is clearly in bad taste, just for a few more likes and comments that will lead us nowhere.”

Kanwal Ahmed, the founder of a closed Facebook group and the host of Conversations with Kanwal – a podcast that gives space to survivors of abuse – also called Jafry out on Twitter. “These jokes are not funny. We don’t need to defend such jokes or normalize them. I’m pretty sure that reel by Shahveer Jafry is very triggering for actual victims of GBV,” she wrote.https://twitter.com/kanwalful/status/1647995372113997826?s=20

Another user, who actually liked Jafry's content and was a fan until now, shared that the vlogger must “rethink where his content is going.”

Jafry’s vlogger friend Akbar Kazi, while saying that people are well within their rights to be offended, also commented on the matter on his Instagram Stories, claiming that his friend was “pressured” to “tap into societal tropes and virality because masses understand this kind of subversion of reality.”

Talking about the social responsibility of content creators with a mass following, he said, “Sure, there’s demand for these kinds of jokes but if you keep supplying, there can’t be change. Shahveer is an intelligent person. I hope he feels that he’s much better than this.” Kazi also shared a podcast link to explain why men behold to such kind of humour and opt for violence and fractured masculinity.

Praising Kazi, a user added, “Never have I ever seen men calling out other men publicly for putting a shitty and disgusting video before. Osama, Kazi, and Bilal are the allies we need to fight the likes of Shahveer Jafry and his pathetic content.”

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