The Weary Facebooker

The demise of Orkut came as no shock to any of us. Its nemesis was a premonition right after the advent of the blue-white era of social networking which pummeled pink ‘o’ to obscurity. And with Zuckerberg’s brainchild becoming by far the most popular social-networking website, status updates like these were doing the rounds: 

With unparalleled affability, Facebook was nothing short of a phenomenon. Frustrated parents who were so technically advanced that they had but recently discovered the joys of Googling swore at the poor Jew creator now at the epicentre of the social network; secretly joined Facebook disguised as “friends” to see what they were up to; threatened to disown them if they wouldn’t stop Facebooking but all in vain*. ‘How I controlled using Facebook in 21 days’ish blogs were sprawled out all over cyberspace.

All said and done, it is indeed wondrous how we manage to stay online for such a long time right up to the brink of boredom – and still not be able to cross out that goddamn Firefox/Chrome browser to indulge in more fruitful activities. The love-hate relation we bear with the big-daddy of all online networking sites is best described in David Ippolito’s song with impeccable rhyme scheme – “Facebook Is A Stupid Idiot” (check it out  if you haven't done so already):

Facebook has a very diverse user list. No it’s not the occupation of the users we’re talking about, but the kinds of users. In retrospect, I would like to acknowledge the top 5 most annoying kinds of Fb’ers I’ve seen in my online odyssey**. Whatever would socializing be without you. Amen.

5). Harish Hash-tagger: Mr HH has sworn upon Chris Messina (the hashtag inventor) that a comment will simply NEVER end in a line. Elaborate comments HAVE TO be summarized in the end as a catchy hash-tag. The basic purpose of hash-tags, designed for the Twitter platform becomes obsolete thanks to HH. Dear Mr HH, thanks for having molested my status updates with your out-of-place, out-of-context, unnecessary hash-tags.

#GetALife!

4). Naina Nonexistent:

Naina’s profile picture is breath-taking. She seems so real even on a virtual platform. To ‘add’ or not to ‘add’ - thus begins the age old debate between the angel and the devil (with me of course, in between).

~1~Angel - Do you know Naina? Why would you want to make friends with someone you don’t even know in reality?!!

~2~Devil - No you don’t. But she sent you a friend request. Look you even have 27 mutual friends!

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and so on till..

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~376~Angel – What if she is a Taliban espionage?

~376~Devil – Don’t be so ridiculously far-fetched. You don’t even work for the government.

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And finally:

You are now friends with Naina Nonexistent. Suggest some friends Naina might know. Do you know Naina outside Facebook? Thank you for your feedback.

Devil: 1, Angel: 0

It may be weeks, even months (sometimes never) before you get to know that you’ve befriended a troll. Remember, appearance is ALWAYS deceptive on Facebook. Screw you, Miss. NN.

3). Hagar the Tagger:

You put me in your “Most Compatible Friends” list, it felt nice.

You made me compete in your race for the Friend Cup (I didn’t even win, but that’s a different story).

It was when you tagged me in the photo of that drunkard with the “Need Alcohol for Research” placard along with 10 others that I started to feel things were going a bit haywire.

When you tagged me in that Photoshopped image of some random guy making out with Scarlett Johannson you totally pissed me off.

Seriously, why are you so hell bent upon making it a Herculean task for me to keep reshuffling the random 6 pictures on my wall every time I log in?

I’m going to “tag” you on a tombstone the next time my name appears on a picture of your dog peeing on your compound wall.

2). Cliché Kavita:

Here are some sample status-updates put up by a friend. These are 100% genuine and I swear they haven’t been made them up.

·        “Awesome weather and i'm havin a hot bowl of noodels.... Yummm! Jus lovin it ♥ :P” 

·        “i soooo want a rain now!!!! :P”

·        Funn days in life..!! Simply Awesomatic!!:)♥

·        Woohoo.. Weekend..!!!:):)♥♥

·        I'm 18 weeks n i'm craving for TWIX!

·        TWIX .....!!! ♥♥♥♥♥♥

An excess of very unnecessary emoticons and highly drab, cliché lines (Not Awesomatic though; I would love to know what that means) make up Kavita’s status updates. Kavita also has the audacity to like these retarded statuses herself. If Kavita looks anything remotely close to Katrina Kaif she’s bound to get two dozen likes at the least. The Twix status update put up by a friend of mine got: hold on to your hats – a whopping 32 likes. Holy Willy Wonka.

1). Irfan the Inviter:

Irfan took the “Which Disease Would You Die Of” quiz and got “Pancreatic Cancer”. What did you get?

Irfan has invited you to play Retard City. Irfan has sent you a free 1930’s vintage Enfield revolver coated with cow fat. What are you going to send him?

Irfan invited you to the event “Let’s kill 10,000 mosquitos by midnight”. Event starts Wednesday 00.00 am.  RSVP to the event.

Irfan just surpassed his high score of 33,347 to gain 37,862 points on “Lunatic-Taxi-Driver-On-The-Loose”. Irfan has challenged you to beat his high score!

Dear Irfan,

I sincerely hope you are run over by that blessed taxi driver.

I wouldn't blame only you, though.

All in all you’re just another brick in my Facebook wall.