Established 1961 13 Lifestyle Features Thursday, July 23, 2020

hen India banned TikTok, it closed a window to the wider Wworld for legions of women out- side the big cities that provided fun, fame and even fortune. The government outlawed the video-sharing platform, and 58 other Chinese apps, this month citing data security fears. TikTok is also reportedly under greater scrutiny else- where including in the United States and Australia. Married soon after she com- pleted college, 27-year-old stay-at-home mother Mamta Verma lives in a small town in Madhya Pradesh state. One day, her daughter got her to install TikTok on her phone to watch the dizzying array of In this file photo Indian mobile users browse through the Chinese Legions of women outside India’s big cities found fun, and The logo of the social media video sharing app Tiktok is dis- zany videos uploaded from across what owned video-sharing ‘Tik Tok’ app on smartphones in Amritsar. some found fame, on Chinese app TikTok. played on a tablet screen in Paris. — AFP photos used to be the app’s biggest internation- al market. Instagram and YouTube are for “the talk to people. I would just do my work, English or Hindi, and the app worked town in Maharashtra state that gets “Rani Mukherji of TikTok”—a reference big people”, Verma told AFP by phone, and as a stay-at-home wife I never made well on low-speed internet. “ piped water for an hour a day and to a famous Bollywood actress—danc- but TikTok she liked. She started to eye contact with people or even spoke cracked the short-form storytelling in endures frequent power cuts. She would ing and miming to famous songs, and record and upload videos of her own. “I much,” Verma said. Speaking a vast text—with 140 and then 280 (charac- upload videos of herself poking fun at gaining 75,000 fans. She won a local started with five likes on my first video. number of languages and dialects, ters). I think TikTok did it with 15 sec- her weak economic status—and soon competition for one of her TikTok That was a big boost for me,” Verma around 70 percent of India’s 1.3 billion onds,” he added. And it reminded the amassed 300,000 followers. “A person videos. Now she has landed a part in a said. Soon, she had more than a million people live in rural areas, a world away urban elite of India’s vast diversity and who works with a Marathi TV show called short film. followers and was earning about 4,000 from big cities such as Mumbai and chasmic differences in wealth. “What me a star... I can’t tell you happy I felt,” “I had never in my life gone up on rupees ($50) per video with her slick New Delhi. Amitabh Kumar from Social we, people sitting in Delhi, probably she told AFP. “I only studied until Class stage and spoken or even initiated a robot dance routines shot inside her Media Matters, a group encouraging judged and made fun of was high- 9. I’m not a big person.” Bhandole said conversation without having a million small, simple home. “It’s not a lot but my “social media for social change”, said class entertainment for a lot of people she wept when TikTok was banned. thoughts in my head,” Dhormise told earnings from TikTok helped in running that for many people in this huge hinter- who never got a chance to express AFP. “But being on TikTok and seeing all the house and also in managing land, TikTok was a “glass ceiling break- themselves,” he said. “Here was for Conservative family the love I was getting gave me the confi- finances for the new house. You know er”. “Instead of Bollywood and rich peo- the first time a space that rural India Archana Arvind Dhormise hopes the dence to keep that going, and also be even 10 rupees is a huge amount for ple, finally there was a chance for com- was enjoying.” benefits she derived from the platform confident in the real world.”—AFP us,” she said. mon people to create something in 15 will last. The 35-year-old from seconds which makes you laugh or cry ‘Not a big person’ Pimpalgaon in Maharashtra seldom left or think or engage,” he told AFP. Another minor star was Rupali Manoj home for fear of censure from her con- Breaking a glass ceiling But it wasn’t just the money. “Before Its different tools were simple to use Bhandole, 29, a housewife and mother servative family and neighbours. But TikTok, I didn’t have the confidence to for those who don’t speak or read who left school at 14 living in a small then the home beautician became the

S rapper and apparent presidential disorder, your risk is somewhere between candidate Kanye West has opened 10 to 20 percent. Scientists are looking Uup in the past about his struggles for the genes responsible, and trying to with bipolar disorder. But his recent understand how these might affect the erratic behaviour has again called into parts of the brain that deal with emotion. question his health and treatment. He Another line of research suggests that US actress Amber Heard leaves after giving launched his election campaign Sunday bipolar disorder could be linked to a flaw evidence at the libel trial by her former hus- with a rambling speech that saw him rant in how cells regulate energy, said band US actor Johnny Depp against News incoherently, reveal he had wanted to Nierenberg. Group Newspapers (NGN), at the High Court in abort his daughter, and break down in There may also be environmental fac- London, on Tuesday. tears. Other celebrities who have spoken tors. For many, but not all patients, publicly about their diagnoses include “there’s a higher rate of childhood trau- actor Stephen Fry and the late fashion ma, childhood abuse and neglect,” said designer Alexander McQueen. What is Burdick. Substance abuse is also a risk the mental illness and why is it often factor, and women sometimes develop it This photo shows the YouTube SarahCooper Comedy channel on a computer screen and a associated with creative people? later in life compared to men. sketch of US author and comedian Sarah Cooper on a mobile phone.—AFP Highs and lows COVID a trigger? Bipolar disorder, formerly known as The bedrock for treatment is mood “manic depression,” is characterized by stabilizing drugs. Lithium, which has extreme mood swings. On the one hand, been used since the 1940s, is still con- patients experience very high periods sidered by many clinicians as the “gold known as “mania” when they feel ener- standard” despite side effects. Anti- gized, elated and can make reckless inflammatory drugs that reduce an abnor- US actor Johnny Depp leaves after attending he is quickly becoming the internet’s injecting disinfectant could help fight the decisions. They sometimes also experi- mal immune response are being investi- his libel trial against News Group Newspapers favourite imperson- coronavirus that cemented Cooper’s sta- ence delusions. “They can almost have gated as a treatment, but research is pre- (NGN), at the High Court in London on Sator but Sarah Cooper does it with- tus. That video instantly made her the no inhibitions at all, which means they liminary. Experts have also started to Tuesday.—AFP photos out saying a word—preferring to let the high priestess of what has come to be can spend their life savings in a day,” understand the role that the disruption of president she calls her “head writer” do known as front-facing camera comedy, a said Andrew Nierenberg, a psychiatry “social rhythms” play in bipolar disorder, the talking for her. The former Google new-ish genre of lo-fi sketches using the professor at Harvard. “They can do which has shifted more attention toward employee has shot to fame during the front-facing camera of a cell phone. something that’s really bad judgment that therapy. For instance, the death of a pet coronavirus pandemic with her trademark The clip, “How to medical,” features they wouldn’t ordinarily do, either sexual- can trigger a depression-mania cycle, lip-synching of some of the US leader’s Trump speaking during an April task force ly, or in relationships, or work.” but when scientists studied such events greatest hits. Each of the Jamaican-born press briefing in which he also pondered The other “pole” of the illness is closely, they realized patients were not comedian’s homemade sketches riffs on whether bringing “light inside the body” depression: ultra-low episodes that can driven by grief alone. a recent Trump soliloquy that has gained might help combat the disease. Cooper include inability to feel pleasure and sui- “Not only did the person suffer psy- notoriety for being unintentionally amusing delivers the monologue with wild, darting cidal thoughts. In fact the suicide rate chologically from that loss, but they used or perplexing. eyes and the kind of power-posturing among bipolar disorder patients is 10–30 to take the dog out for walks, they got She parodies these unwieldy rhetorical body language that simultaneously times higher than that of the general pop- exercise, and it also got them up early in mber Heard on Tuesday denied symphonies in clips with titles that reflect betrays an easy confidence and yet the ulation. The illness affects up to three per- the day so that they had social interac- having an affair with billionaire entre- Trump’s topic of choice, such as “How to sort of pompous swagger born of deep, cent of the population, which makes it tions,” said Sullivan. People with bipolar Apreneur Elon Musk, as she gave evi- Obamagate” and “How to strong death unacknowledged insecurity. “I’m envious more common than schizophrenia but disorder are sensitive to such disruptions, dence in ex-husband Johnny Depp’s high- totals.” As the United States negotiates a of his abilities to sort of BS his way rarer than depression. which means events like the coronavirus profile London libel action. Depp, 57, had fraught civil rights reckoning, an election through life,” Cooper told MSNBC And there can be much variation pandemic and lockdowns can cause accused the 34-year-old actress of having between two aging white men and a Tuesday, adding that when imitating among patients, said Timothy Sullivan, particular harm. “I have actually had one liaisons with the Tesla and SpaceX founder once-in-a-lifetime pandemic, the videos Trump “I feel like I’m getting just a little bit the chair of psychiatry at Staten Island patient who I haven’t seen in more than and the Hollywood actor James Franco have gone the right kind of “viral.” And of that confidence that I wish more women University Hospital. Some are more 10 years, who I don’t currently treat, who during their stormy two-year marriage. But they have thrust the 40-something into the had and I wish I had.” The topics aren’t depressive and rarely manic, while oth- called me up out of the blue and she’s giving evidence she rejected the claims, in spotlight as one of the country’s most rele- new terrain for Cooper, who had already ers are the other way around. As a result, clearly manic,” said Sullivan. Support particular dismissing suggestions Musk vis- vant and indispensable comics. Cooper written two books—“100 Tricks to Appear diagnoses are typically delayed for groups like the Depression Bipolar ited her regularly at night from March 2015, says the clips appeal in part because Smart in Meetings” and “How to be years. If a patient has so far only experi- Support Alliance are credited with raising not long after the couple wed. “I wasn’t they demonstrate that Trump’s more Successful Without Hurting Men’s enced depression, they may be misdiag- awareness and destigmatizing the illness. even in communication with Elon until eccentric utterances are only seen as part Feelings.” nosed. West first revealed his diagnosis There is thought to be an over-repre- 2016,” she told London’s High Court on her of normal discourse because it is the on his 2018 album “Ye,” where he called sentation of artists, writers and musicians second day on the witness stand. president speaking. ‘Close my eyes’ it his “superpower.” Last year, he among people with bipolar disorder, a Depp, star of “The Pirates of the Exhibit Number One, for Cooper: the The videos have earned Cooper more revealed it caused him paranoid delu- subject explored in the book “Touched Caribbean” franchise, is suing British White House coronavirus task force brief- than 1.9 million Twitter followers — a veri- sions and described being handcuffed with Fire.” Figures from history who may tabloid The Sun and the author of a 2018 ings, which resumed Tuesday after being table who’s who of Hollywood types, during treatment. have had the illness include Vincent Van article that claimed he was a “wife-beater”. halted amid stinging criticism over politicians and influencers, from former Gogh. “Creative people are distinguished He maintains it severely damaged his repu- Trump’s exaggerated claims on the pub- president Barack Obama to comedians Risk factors by particularly unique ways of thinking tation. Depp’s lawyer, Eleanor Laws, read lic health response and his promotion of Steve Martin and Ellen DeGeneres, as Bipolar disorder is known to be “one of that involve intense emotional experi- out a 2016 text message sent by Musk bogus treatments. “Being a black woman, well as “Hamilton” creator Lin-Manuel the more heritable mental illnesses” said ences” explained Sullivan.—AFP offering Heard protection against Depp I could never get away with talking like Miranda. Mark Hamill, Luke Skywalker in Katherine Burdick, a psychologist at after an alleged fight between the couple. that in a meeting, let alone as president of the “Star Wars” movies, recently con- Harvard and the Brigham and Women’s “The offer would stand, even if you never the United States,” she told Vanity Fair. fessed on Twitter that “I close my eyes Hospital. If one of your parents had the wanted to see me again... anyway, sorry for when the real #POTUS is on TV speaking being an idiot,” he wrote. “The radio ‘How to medical’ & just picture @sarahcpr. It’s really helped silence hurts a lot. It only matters because I Cooper shot to fame on TikTok and control my gag-reflex.” Jerry Seinfeld has really like you.” The text was sent the day Twitter, where her upstart impersonations retweeted Cooper, as has actor and after Heard claims the actor hit her in the garnered millions of likes just as the refugee rights activist , who face with a mobile phone during an argu- nation’s top comics retreated homeward called her recent “How to immigration pol- ment, and while she was considering to film their shows from basements and icy” clip his “favourite of all the ones that I obtaining a restraining order. living rooms, putting her production val- really like that are also my favourite.” Heard claimed on Monday that Depp ues on par with theirs. In “How to cogni- And with November’s presidential elec- threatened to kill her on a number of tive” Cooper lip-synchs the president in a tion still more than 100 days away, there’s occasions, and subjected her to verbal recent Fox News interview professing to not likely to be a shortage of useable and physical violence while under the have “aced” an unspecified cognitive test, sound bites. “I’ll keep on doing them as influence of drink and drugs. On baiting Democratic rival Joe Biden whom, long as my head writer gives me materi- Tuesday, Heard acknowledged hitting Trump alleges, “couldn’t pass one.” With al,” Cooper told The Los Angeles Times. Depp during a particularly nasty argu- smug self-satisfaction, Cooper holds up Until now, Trump impersonations have ment in March 2015 whose details have proof of the completed assessment: the been famously dominated by actor Alec been in dispute throughout the trial. “I did page of a colouring book which looks like Baldwin, who portrays the president on strike Johnny that day in defence of my it has been scrawled over by an ungainly “.” — AFP sister,” she said, expressing fear that toddler. However it was a 49-second clip In this file photo Kanye West meets with US President Donald Trump in the Oval Office of the Depp was about to push her sister of Trump’s now-infamous suggestion that White House in Washington, DC.—AFP Whitney down the stairs.—AFP