Facebook Follies

Identifying a Facebook moron is easy. They are usually engaged in a predictable and repeated pattern of activities that tend to fall in one or more of the following categories.

1. They write a message on someone's wall informing them that they should check their cell phone voice message because they called them and they did not answer.

2. Someone else's profile picture on Facebook was taken by them, and they comment on it saying, "Wow, great picture. Wonder who the photographer is! Wink Wink!". They might be great photographers, but Facebook morons nevertheless.

3. They are husband-wife in real life and Farmville neighbors or Mafia mobs in the virtual world.

4. They recognize multiple and totally unrelated people in social gatherings like Dandiya or Durga Puja, who they do not know at all (complete strangers), whose pictures they have seen again and again on Facebook. Earlier, people met each other in person and found them later on Facebook. Now, they know faces from Facebook, and meet them later in person.

5. They live and document their entire lives on countdowns. 5 days to the Vegas trip. 6 months before summer vacation starts! 2 hours for the surprise romantic candle light dinner. 3 weeks befoe mother-in-law flies back to India. 9 days for the labor pains to start. And end their announcements with a "Yippiieee!!"

6. They frequently use terms like “awwwwwww” and “XOXOXOXO” in abundance, usually with members of the same gender.

7. They “like” every post you write, every picture you post, and even “like” every comment your pictures or posts earn, but never ever comment. When they occasionally comment, it is never anything more committal than “9ice”, “cool”, or “gr8”.

8. They post forward messages about cancer awareness and about loving their mothers that start with, “I have a request, and I know exactly which ones of you are going to post this ….” and ends with “repost and share this if you are a human, even if for one hour.” Talk about psychological pressure, huh?

9. They post pictures of their newborns still bathing in the amniotic fluid or worse, lying helpless, shriveled up, and without clothes. No offense to mothers, babies, or motherhood, and you might blame me for not understanding the emotions since I have never mothered a baby, but I find it quite repulsive. I wouldn’t be very happy honestly if I found a picture of mine bathing in my mother’s amniotic fluid floating around for people to see.

10. They post messages like “TGIF”. You are darn right, you need to thank God it is Friday, just like you should sometimes thank God that you have a job and are gainfully employed. You might find it a luxury sitting in your plush office and cribbing about the work load on Facebook, because you make work sound like some kind of punishment you undergo five days a week, and not as your means for finding an identity, engagement, and intellectual stimulation. People like me never get to thank God it is Friday, because we work seven days a week, and do it because we love it. Think about well-qualified people who are unemployed, or about daily wage workers who don’t have a Facebook account and hence don’t get to post status messages like, “Thank God the strike was lifted. Now we will get to work and earn our daily wages.”

sunshine