Fake Faces on Facebook

A plethora of Facebook updates these days has overwhelmed me to the point that I feel an urge to vomit out my surveillance made over the span of my Facebook journey — also, to reveal to the mankind how grateful I am to this special feature called, ‘Unfollow’ button on Facebook with just a click of which, I can make all simpletons’ garbage of over-sentimentality disappear. Nevertheless, time and again, I do check them, because foolishness is often the source for many humorous anecdotes. By nature, all human beings enjoy attention, but the question is, how one can do so while being within the limits of dignity. When I mentally picture it all, several characters emerge who seriously fail in this Facebook madness.

So-called Candid Shots 

There are some wannabe starlets of Facebook who keep posting pictures with supposedly two of them sitting alone, enjoying a private moment(oh-they-really-care-about-privacy-you-see). Who the hell clicked the picture from that perfect angle, perfect distance, perfect timing, and with perfect expressions on their faces? And yes, we are also fucking fools to still ‘like’ the photos and comment there, “Awww love is in the air….”

Must-Write-Cheesy-Caption on Pictures

I mean they have to create a perfect impression to fabricate that dreaminess after all, for people to think that only they get to live that perfect love-life — portrayed by Bollywood masala movie couples bonded with some intangible contract destined for them to come together repeatedly, in what they figured out, for seven rebirths on this planet.

Absolute disregard towards any language

What’s awfully more annoying? One sentence can’t be observed written entirely in a single language. I feel like saying…”bhai sahab…aap Hindi me hi kyun nahi likh dete?” But no, that would make them look so crude you know! Dude, your horrible writing skills are not making you look any refined either.

Now after having inadequately failed to control the urge to upload not-so-important picture on Facebook and adding the cheesiest applicable description on ‘HOWs’ and ‘WHATs’ about the situations leading to that picture’s establishment, they feel an obligation to even conclude the picture, “you may not express your love every day, but your gestures make me fall in love with you even more!!!” Of course, the person who is not-so-open to express his love by saying a straight “I-love-you” to his partner is totally cool about his romantic gestures being on public display, on Facebook feeds of hundreds of readers he doesn’t even know.

They have a special ability to invent their own superlative form of adjectives:

Some jobless old school conservatives tried to squeeze in extra words into the English dictionary, anticipating that those words might express the superlative forms of words in an effortless manner. For example, instead of saying ‘very big’, one could say ‘huge’, or ‘very angry’ can be simplified to ‘furious’, or ‘sexy’ becomes ‘sensuous’,’seductive’, etc. But then there are our intellectuals who would say, ‘hey, we don’t fucking need any of that, we can create our own words that can be exaggerated or broken down to simpler forms by just adding or subtracting syllables. Watch how we do it; if you want to say, ‘extremely crazy’, then add extra ‘zzz’ to it – Crazzzzy. Simple. Do you want to say insane? Add as many or as little extra Zs and Ys you feel like, and you are all set to put your message across. Want to express how ‘sexy’ something felt like? Feel free even to drop few unsightly letters and solely focus on syllables, e.g ‘Secsssy’. Want an even more intense form? Apply the same rule you did to the word, ‘Crazy’ – ‘Secccccssssssssssy’! See? That is sufficient to raise a hair or two of even of the most undersexed person in all humanity.

Facebook Update – “Spending quality time with XYZ” 

What does the quality time mean in such posts, I wonder. Are such times spent with their loved ones so rare, that those few ones brag a special status to be displayed as Facebook badges?

Some can’t thank their Stars enough and seek help from Facebook as a mode of communication to send their acknowledgment 

One fine morning, someone felt so fucking overwhelmed by how lucky she was to have got someone so loving, caring, and blah blah blah as a partner, that she was generous enough to shower her goodwill wishes on each person on earth that God would bless them too with a similar partner like hers. Of course, pretty much as expected, many, choked to throat with this act of benevolence, wished her back ‘more’ luck & ‘more’ happiness. But I doubt if she had room for ‘more’. Meanwhile, I couldn’t help but wonder what level of performance pressure now ‘this bestest (all-thanks-to-FB-for-my-fucked-up-vocab) partner’ must be undergoing to justify his worth, after having received the highest FB honor award.

While we are at it, it also makes me wonder why people can’t thank their stars enough for ‘how lucky’ they are to have ‘found’ their soul-mates (because partner sounds too mediocre) like they fell from the sky into their laps. “What was that farce then, which took you few months to years to finalize the ‘right’ person to settle down for, after you decided that you were ready to mingle? Someone who didn’t have the chance to make a choice, might vouch for the starts, but others – will you please shut the fuck up?”

People who “Can’t ask for more”

(because all that makes them happy is a few hundred Facebook likes and comments)

That typical phrase, ‘Can’t ask for more’  has become so corrupt, and has been so unfairly used, that whenever I come across it now, I am embraced by a sense of scepticism, about how much truth lies beneath that expression of gratitude, when clearly people who seem to ‘can’t-ask-for-more‘ are in fact begging for attention from people who don’t even matter to them.

Gadget Show-Offs

Got a new Gadget as a gift? – Must must must update on Facebook with all configuration details! How else are they ever going to get an ROI on the device, for learning to make full use of it, is beyond their gray cells’ capability.

“Made my day” – Updates

There is a lofty chance of such updates having nothing special about the day, rather it could be an indirect way of highlighting a casual compliment made by some random person about their  look or work or outfit or whatever. What they are expected to do is, accept it with grace and be thankful to that person for the kind words and move on. But no, how could they let it go without making an ass out of themselves by making it a Facebook status update, while switching their language from English to Hindi, then back to English, with ellipses (…) connecting the sentences because they have no fucking idea how to write an impeccable sentence with the help of punctuations, neither in English nor in Hindi.

Metaphorical Resonance of their feelings.

“That feeling… When someone said so and so…it left a smile on my face throughout the day…not because apni-tareef-suni (hindi)…but because blah blah blah……remaining-bullshit-of-the-story”

Obligatory Birthday Greetings

There is some invisible force that drives them to do this. As if they don’t, the world will fall apart for the fact, how ungrateful (or rather संस्कार-less) they have been to not announce to the world what a unique and loving family they were born into, and the privilege will be thus, taken back. If that isn’t torturous enough, people born with a competitive mind, get into some sort of undeclared race against each other in proving on Facebook how they feel more about the family and value it above everything else; and try their level best to sound poetic like Wordsworth while doing so.

Example:

“The Day When…blah blah blah….The Day When lorem ipsom…The Day When more bullshit lorem ipsum and some more shit here”

Hashtag fanatics

There are some, who believe that it is none of their fucking business to understand what that criss-cross symbol stands for in the Social Media. All that they use it for is to decorate not-so-creative sentence structures to grab some attention. Also for some, I feel, it is an opportunity to never learn English grammar properly. Because for them, using #hashtags is like saying out loud, “hey! I can’t write a complete sentence in English, but I don’t even care to learn; you know why – because I think #HashtagsSaveMyAssWhenISuckAtGrammar”.

Some classic Hashtag-Murders on my Facebook feed:

1. Must update Lunch-Status:

“Pasta made by my ‪#shona. It was the best ever pasta I have eaten. ‪#‎true‬ to my words.”

2.  Caption must accompany a Picture:

“Thts love… ‪#‎pure‬ and ‪#‎true‬ smile emoticon“

 

3. The most absurd usage of Hashtag ever: (“Enclose a person’s name within the hashtags on either side and have no clue why they must do so”)

‪”#‎John Doe# Wedding# on 1st Oct #2011″

4. #triedmybestbutcouldntbecreative statuses:

Delhi to lovely Bombay to happening Pune!!! ‪#‎waitingtomeetfriends‬ ‪#‎adorablecompanion ‪#‎rainyweather‬ ‪#‎enjoyingdrive ‪#‎roadtrip‬ ‪#‎hubbykasaath‬

For people like above, I recommend this page.

Profile Pics Obsession:

More often than not, these are used more like a portfolio to exhibit how rocking/sexy/in-love/party-making/vacationing-often/traditional-during-festivals/happening they are. And if the outcome of photographs on a lucky day is particularly impressive, there will be a profound effort to compress all poses into the same picture. Front-Pose + Side-Pose + Back-Pose. Upload Done. Now hungrily wait for ‘likes’. Even online apparel shops don’t bother to upload that many angles for their models wearing the outfit in question for sale. I could barely suppress my temptation to ask, “Price Please!”

By that desperate attempt to display too many poses in one picture, they virtually resemble the picture above.

If you are any/all of the above, think about it and set things right before you too pave your way into someone’s blog. You can thank me later.

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*This is a work of general research on people with low self-control over Information Disclosure and Control on Facebook without having enough idea over the long-term consequences of their behavior. Any resemblance to actual persons, Living or Dead, is purely coincidental.