- A casual "share the link" comment revealed how easily curiosity turns into cruelty online.
- Despite Payal publicly denying the video, the sharing and speculation continued.
- Cheap internet access have normalised believing and spreading content without pause.
“Share the link, please,” I thought, waking up late that morning and brushing past a post quoting one of India’s popular gamers on X, assuming it was just another stream clip from the day. “Might be some stream they did today”, I thought as I went back to my usual routine. However, when I checked X again during my next break, I realised these comments had taken on a very different meaning.
It takes barely a second to type something like that now, and people will find it in an instant. And that’s exactly what’s scary. Cheap internet. Faster phones. Endless scrolling.
Somewhere along the way, the world started moving so fast that we stopped trying to catch up. And this is exactly where the problem begins. What’s fed to us is taken at the surface level, accepted without pause, and believed as facts. You don’t even need to believe something anymore; you just need access to it.
That’s why what recently happened with Payal Dhare, known as Payal Gaming, shook me to the core.
Fake MMS claims falsely linked to Payal Gaming spread rapidly across platforms
If you follow mobile gaming in India, you couldn’t miss it. A private video began doing the rounds online, with people casually attaching Payal’s name to it. This spread like wildfire. So many posts, reposts, and that familiar comment section chorus asking for the “link”. Within hours, the shamelessness had reached its dirtiest peak.
Eventually, Payal came forward and said it clearly: the woman in the video was not her. It had nothing to do with “her life, her choices, or her identity”. She said legal action was being taken. She respectfully asked people to stop sharing it.
But by then, it almost didn’t matter, because the internet had already decided what it wanted.
And here’s the most uncomfortable part: I’ll go ahead and say I don’t even care anymore whether the clip was AI-generated, morphed, or something else entirely. That debate is not necessary. The real problem is how effortlessly people kept typing “share link?” “Have link?” even after she spoke up. That’s absolutely disgusting.
At some point, we lost sight of the fact that people on the internet are *pause* people. A name turns into a search term. A face turns into content. Rumours turn into entertainment. Just people want to see others in distress, well, that has been the case for many years now.
Shameful behaviour, when excused as “just the internet” is even more disgraceful
The worst part is the way in which this is then shrugged off. This is “just the internet.” Until that same kind of issue occurs to them or to someone close to them. Then and only then does the concept of privacy and dignity come into play, only if they care.
In the case of Payal Gaming, this became a reality check. Even after she said she wasn’t, even after she asked people not to, it continued. It’s disturbing to even think about the volume of online filth she had to endure through it all.
It happened to someone popular, so many people are voicing out against it with other popular names voicing their frustrations out, a reminder that there are still good people out there. But such things happen to people not familiar with the public face; imagine their pain, too.
I don’t know how many people will actually read this. And I don’t know how many, even after reading, will stop and think the next time their fingers hover over the keyboard, asking for a “link.” If they were going to learn, maybe they already would have by now.
But it still feels important to say this out loud. All I can hope for is that somewhere in all this noise, a few people pause. That they feel at least a little shame, the kind that makes you reflect on the mistakes. The kind that asks, “What if this were someone I loved? What if this were me?”
At the very least, I hope we learn to be quieter, kinder, and more human.
- A love letter to MLBB fans: Inside the heart of MOONTON HQ
- Light of Motiram vanishes from stores as Sony and Tencent Games quietly end their legal war
- All Mobile Gaming Announcements at The Game Awards 2025
- World Cricket Championship 4 announces its arrival with a teaser, but its purpose depends on what you expect
For more Mobile Gaming news and updates, join our WhatsApp Channel, Telegram Group, or Discord server. Also, follow us on Instagram, Twitter and Google News for quick updates.
