Wednesday, October 12, 2011

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

11 comments:

naween said...

The last point was a bit harsh :)

the.orchestra.of.life said...

One of my favorites .... Pinku was with Bablu at LalaLand (as status update) :D

sunshine said...

naween, the last point was written from personal experience. I have experienced unemployment and the uncertainty and penuriousness that comes with it for months. When you crib about work load, think how it might feel to be unemployed.

the.orchestra.of.like, was this an update seriously? :) Sounded like "Chunnu padhta Diamond comics, Munni padhti Diamond comics." :)

Biddu said...

"They live and document their entire lives on countdowns."...I liked this line the most among many other satirical ones.... :D :D .....For me, it's a great start to this otherwise gloomy day with this piece of sunshine :)

Ash said...

It's nice to see someone taking an empathetic view! I always thought it was my invidia that caused me to be repulsed by people who updated their statuses about "Monday morning blues" or "having to work overtime". But I suppose such updates are just totally inappropriate by nature and something I would never do even if I was employed.

Mr. Banerjee said...

There's another kind. Those who change their facebook profile pictures seemingly a thousand times every week.

Arnab Majumdar said...

I've met a lot of these people. I think I'm guilty of being some of those people myself, at some point or the other in life... but then, this was a hilarious read! :D hehe

Cheers,
Arnab Majumdar on SribbleFest.com

Nothing said...

This was a hilarious read. I have stopped using facebook because I got so irritated with the amount of "I am so cool and sooo happy, look at me" things that my friends used to do. A couple I know make it a point to declare their love for each other every single day on facebook while they actually stay in the same place. But reading your post made me see the funny side of it :). But on the other day, I do idiotic things on the internet, so maybe I am an internet moron...hmmm.

Munlite redefined said...

amaar mone hoy je ...aami buro hoye giyechi ......It is not that I don't know how to Facebook ....But I still can't write & do such things ......

Express said...

:D
oh yea, like u said, it is so not difficult to locate a fb moron. And their percentage seems to be increasing at an alarming rate :o

and oh,
you forgot the ones who 'like' their own status msgs or post about whatever they ate after every single meal! and yea, I totally and wholeheartedly agree with the last point! :)

Caladrius said...

I have been unemployed for six months during which I applied to seventy five million companies before landing this particular job I am presently at, and still, the last point is quite harsh.