Politically Incorrect

Lookie! Here I am, again, on the last day of this year. And rather annoyingly, Facebook, it seems, won't go away. In fact, social media has become humungous. Absolute nobodies become household names overnight. Household names get cut down to size when their misdemeanours become the target of very public, and very personal flogging. Again, through social media. Careers are made or broken, because of viral responses to stuff on social networking sites. And it is being hammered into our heads, non stop, that social media is the next best thing since sliced bread. The wheel. That it really is the cat's meow.

Heh, no.

Let me explain. India, in the past few months, has been hit by a popular movement against corruption, led by someone called Anna Hazare. The rights and wrongs of his movement, I shall not go into (not in this post, anyway), but Mr Hazare, we're told, has "hundreds of thousands of millions" of supporters across India and the world. How are these numbers arrived at, do I hear you asking? Well, its based on how many people "Lick" his Facebook page or "tweet" his twatter page, or something. And its not just for this, its an epidemic. When Sachin Tendulkar had scored about 70 runs in a recent match, NDTV already had a page up to "congratulate Sachin on his 100th 100." Well, he never got there. And yet I'm sure the page got millions of licks. And twats.

And based on these numbers, people make money. Advertising revenue. It doesn't quite translate into anything in the real world, though. It is so laughably easy to "support" or "congratulate" someone, clicking on things from the comfort of one's home. Click, click, click, click - it takes no effort at all. Damn nearly no time spent, nor energy, nor money. And so, when Mr Hazare expected hazaron to rally against corruption, he got about two attendees. And quite likely neither of whom had licked his page. Does this mean, then, that people aren't bothered about corruption? No, I'm sure they are - but just bothered enough to click. And nothing more. That's how its been for quite a while now, hasn't it?

What, then, has social media changed? 

Don't give me that do goody good bullshit...

The title has nothing whatsoever to do with my post today, I think. Unless, I digress. Which I feel myself doing now, so fair chance. Anyway, its MY blog and I make up the rules on whether blog entries and titles have to be related. I know its been a hiatus and I have been literally inundated with message(s)! threatening to disembowel Snagglepuss if I didnt resume immediately. I couldnt help but oblige! And so here goes...

Social Networking sites: There's a ton of them. hi5, Orkut, Facebook, Xanga, Friendster, myChurch, mySpace, Bebo, Auto Drivers Association, Auto passengers association, you name it!It first started off wth a site called hi5, back in the days when I was a snot nosed youngster, oblivious to the evil in the world. So, this hi5 thing, allowed you to create a profile, add pictures, music, and everything. Soon, we could add videos, format our profile: make it nice and colorful and so on and so forth. Everybody thought hi5 was awesome and nothing could pull anybody off it. Features kept being added and soon it became quite laden with all the things that you could to to make your profile look attractive to the opposite sex(Ooh, look at me, I've got a Javascript clock that goes around with mouse pointers.. look at it flex.. Doensn't it make you want to sleep with me?)

And then along came orkut, and you had to go to the trouble with making a new profile and answering a few hundred questions for a small miniscule questionnare. It added something called a scrapbook, if I remember right, that you could leave messages for friends on. I remember figuring out that you needed to go to someone else's scrapbook to leave a message for them after an embarrassingly long time and replies to everybody's messages on my own scrapbook.  And that became huugely popular. hi5 was Simbhu popular. Orkut was Rajinikanth popular. And everybody would spend hours on it looking at everybody else's pictures and judging("Ooh, she's fat now. Ooh who's that girl she's with? looks hot!!") and add people they knew and ppl they knew through ppl they knew and so on and so forth. And suddenly there was a new kid on the block called AssFacebook, and everybody claimed to have "privacy problems" with orkut

And now Facebook's all the craze. There's something called a wall, apparenly, which is kinda like a scrapbook but its different because its on facebook. I don't know why anyone would call it a wall when nothing can be nailed to it. Metaphorically it does work fine I guess, with ability to host videos and audio and images and what not. And then there are apps, which you need to install if you need to do anything on facebook. Every thing you do's an app, and you have to add it to your apps to do it, and your apps list grows and grows. There are groups for the silliest of things and you can keep your co group members posted on everything.("I had diarrhoea today, and ..") The worst part of facebook is, anything you do on facebook, is promptly reported to all of your friends. Its the most ridiculous thing, you can't pick your nose in peace, it will go and tell your grandmother. Its an insult to confidentiality, that's what it is. And then there's the interface. There's absolutely nothing you can accomplish in facebook with one click. There's hands down, nothing you can find. If you can find it today, It will have changed tomorrow. It makes me want to put my finger into my brain through my eyes and swirl it around. And since google owns it now, It'll be ubiquitious. I still am on it though, because admitting you don't have a facebook account, thse days is like admitting you don't have genitals. I do have to admit I still go on sometimes, to have a good laugh at what people are doing, and so on and so forth. And Facebook has got a lot of its stuff right. Its just impossible to live with, on a daily basis. Its an exercise on how complicated something simple can be made. 

However, soon, there'll be something else that comes along and everybody will drop Facebook like a, well, everyone will. For now, however, Heavens to Murgatroyd! Look at the Time. I'm late...delayed, even. Exit Stage Left.