Nida Yasir and her formula for a viral video

KARACHI: If there is one thing we know by Nida Yasir by now, it is that she loves to stay in the news. Having done some questionable things in the past, the morning show host seldom seems to regret her actions or be embarrassed. Good for her too because on Saturday morning, most of Pakistan woke up to yet another clip of hers making rounds on social media. The clip from an episode of Good Morning Pakistan from 2016 shows a very confused and blank Nida Yasir struggling to understand the concept of a Formula 1 car.

Her guests, Abdul Aleem and Mohammad Shariq War, were part of a team of students from NUST who built an electric racing car to compete at Formula Student. Nida Yasir did not only have no idea about Formula 1, the biggest international event for racings cars, she also seemed to know nothing about her guests’ invention.

At first, Yasir struggles to understand why the racing car is a single-seater. She wants to know how many people it can fit in, as if it’s a vehicle to be taken on family picnics. “Choti gaari hai,” she states out loud as a typical desi who must judge people by the size of their car. The host then wonders whether the car built is a single-seater because it is in its test phase. When her guests explain that a Formula style car is a single-seater by nature, Yasir has an epiphany where she finally understands that the formula for the experimental car does not allow for more seats. Perhaps she believed that more seats will be added to the car once it comes out of its experimental phase but for her next question, she wants to know if Abdul Aleem and Shariq War have ever sat inside the car. The car’s speed and whether it matches up to how fast a regular car runs on petrol is also a matter of concern for the host.

The clip that has been going viral is only 35 seconds long but even that duration feels too much. Pakistanis have been shocked, embarrassed and plain amused by Nida Yasir’s words. The problem is not that she did not know what Formula 1 is or how these cars work. The problem is how unprepared talk show hosts tend to be. These shows thrive on views and ratings and will go to any extent to attract audiences, but very little thought seems to go into executing a show which is actually enjoyable.

Naturally, the internet has been filled with memes and Nida Yasir has been trending as a hashtag all weekend. While the nation enjoys a good laugh, we hope that our interviewers start putting in more effort and research into their scripts.