You either die a hero or live long enough to see yourself become the hating aunty you complained about

Last week, a popular relationship and pop culture podcast centered on the South Asian community, Coaches Don’t Play, dropped an episode talking about a forum within the South Asian community, particularly the Punjabi community, which was born and bred out of one thing and one thing only: unadulterated hatred.

Host Pammy Bhatti and guest host Gina Judge from the Millennial Money Guide broke down the conception and demise of this online forum and how they worked to reveal the identities of some of the culprits. 

While they chose—rightfully so—to avoid naming the platform, it’s a tale as old as time for those who dare to have public facing persona’s or profiles to receive hate for simply existing.

This time, however, the anonymous trolls had power in numbers, joining forces not to create good in the world, but to collectively revel in what they saw as their right—to provide “opinions” on people who willingly choose to put themselves out there online.

When I first found out about this platform and scrolled through it, I could feel the bile rising in my stomach and I genuinely felt sick at what I was reading. 

People were taking joy in tearing apart influencers, podcasters, business owners, media personalities and everything in between, for the simple crime of existing online. 

Things from people’s appearances, relationships, business credentials, history, children, families and everything in between was ruthlessly scrutinized behind a veil of anonymity, as posters repeatedly defended their right to post what they wanted about the influencers they claimed to hate. 

A lot of the posters on the platform repeatedly stated that because the people they were posting about had public facing profiles, they were entitled to sharing their thoughts and opinions, not just about their work, but about the most personal aspects of their lives and existence. 

It was valid to them to call people “ugly,” a “whore,” an “adulterer,” and worse, because they were asking for it by posting online. 

Commenters were malicious, not beholden to any sense of truth, not providing proof of their claims and gleefully posting the most vulgar comments because their real names weren’t attached.

The irony, however, especially in Pammy and Gina’s findings from their research about those behind the posts, was that many of them purported to be fans of their work despite posting hateful messages online. 

When caught red handed, it was revealed that many of those who were first in line to comment and detail their hatred of the two online figures, were also fans, messaging them their support in hopes of being accepted by someone they ultimately wanted to be more like. 

It demonstrated the central origin of what sparks a lot of this hate, particularly in the Punjabi community. 

Seeing someone else do something you’ve always wanted to do, or have something that you think is not within your means to have, triggers deep-seated feelings of self doubt and primarily, jealousy. 

Pammy and Gina rightfully named that this type of envy is unique to the Punjabi community, something which can be thought to date back to our parent’s generation. 

But why?

Why, in 2025, are we still here?

In a culture that is founded on our collectivist nature, one where we refer to others of the same background as “apne,” or “our own,” why is there this natural inclination to rip each other apart?

We see others driving certain cars, buying certain homes, wearing certain clothes or throwing lavish weddings and the jealousy drives us to push ourselves into the ground to keep up and hopefully avoid judgement from others. 

The thought of what others will say has dictated our parent’s every move and now, our own generation of aunties and uncles is trying their best to police us from evolving too far, from growing too much, or reaching too great of heights.

While we say we want to lift each other up, it’s usually those from our own community who are the first to try to bring us right back down, premised on the idea that ‘you can go far, just not much farther than me.’ 

The clear culprit here is jealousy, but it manifests itself in a much more insidious form. 

The comments anonymously left in DM’s and on public pages and the forums dedicated to hatred, are intended to cut deep, to leave a scar, and to try to push those who dare to have big ambitions back into obscurity. 

It’s clear that “hurt people hurt people,” but where does all of this pain stem from?

Why is it hard to be happy for “your own,” or, at the very least, say nothing at all?

Sure, gossip and sharing stories about others is not a new phenomenon, and our aunties loved to do so at their kitty parties over cha. 

But their gossip remained within the confines of their own networks and weren’t blasted into the universe online for the object of their ire to see and be brought back down to earth. 

The parasocial relationships developed online made many of these online posters believe that they know about the most intimate details of one’s life simply because of the fragments they’ve pieced together online. 

You’re either doing too much or not doing enough and either way, you’re going to hear about it from people who at the end of the day, wish they could do what you are doing. 

While I’ve spent some time thinking deeply about this forum and the unsettling feelings it brought me to know there were this many people excited to participate in something centered on hate, I haven’t been able to dream up how we actually respond to it. 

Is this type of jealousy, hatred, pocket watching, internal policing and judgement simply a part of some of our DNA and inevitably going to be passed down to the next generation like it was to ours?

Or is there a way to break the cycle, quit trying to “Keep up with the Joneses,'” and fiending at the downfall of people who look like us? 

What I do know, however, is that while so many of these people participating in these public hate fests will be the first to decry the aunties commenting on their relationship status, career, weight, looks, or everything in between, they will also be the first in line to do the same damn thing to the next person.

You either die a hero, or live long enough to see yourself become the hating aunties you’ve always complained about.

And that’s a damn shame.