The real Neelam Gill

The media has always been an interesting platform for whatever it’s decided to showcase, whether it’s in the form of television, newspapers, the radio etc. People feed off the media and the media feed off people and despite this very obvious link, the media have always found ways to twist and turn things about the people they talk about away from the truth for the sake of gossip.

Just recently, Burberry model, Neelam Gill has received a lot of attention in the media as well as numerous social media sites for her affiliation with Zayn Malik. She has been credited as being Zayn’s rumoured new beau and as interesting or upsetting as it may seem to fellow Zayn Malik fanatics such as myself, it’s also important to step back and realise how even among ourselves we reduce a person’s identity to who they may or may not be dating.

Society has become so weak and feeble that we’d much rather pawn over the fact that this Neelam girl is dating or not dating Zayn rather than the fact that she embodies and represents something so much greater in simply doing what she does for a living. Neelam is the first Indian model to work for Burberry which may not seem like much but it’s actually a huge deal. For someone of her ethnicity to be working as a model for Burberry empowers many people like her who don’t have someone like themselves to look up to in the industry.

With so many of us striving for equality and diminishing discrimination and stereotypes of all sorts, we’re still pretty bad at appreciating people where its due. The music, film and fashion industry are certainly in need of more people who represent those of us who aren’t as vividly represented. Newcomers like Neelam Gill who speak about topics such as racism, society and beauty in the way she’s affected by it are exactly the kind of people we should be looking up to welcome diversity into our worlds.

I’ll admit I found out about Neelam only after she’d been linked to Zayn, but I tore myself away from the rumours to stalk her twitter yesterday and read through her Q and A she did with fans. Now I’m certain she is a definitely super cool chick who deserves way more love. I’m certain of bright things in her career.

Follow her twitter @NeelamKG if you want to get to know her better!

Written by CelebMix