The 'Epic-ness' of The Social Network

Claimer: Intended for those people who think it is about them.

Unrelated Statement: I’m 94.86% sure that I’m possessed by Facebook.

Reason I Think So: I can’t seem to go three minutes without logging in and logging out (even though I don’t do much else). This month has been the most inactive-on-FB one for me but it still shows up on my most visited tab.

On an entirely different note, I admit to being a FB stalker.  I go check out other people’s walls, people on their friends’ lists’ interesting posts, notes that they might have written and such (if that’s what stalking means). I don’t get what the big deal is, we used to do that on Orkut and Myspace and all those other networks and we do it on FB as well. You don’t? Hah. Are those your pants that just caught on fire, liar?

Anyway, moving one from my psychological-ownership-status and my creeping-people-out skills, have you ever noticed that people’s behavior changes drastically on FB? Like suddenly the world is filled with awesome, super-cool people with such happening lives going on such politically correct holidays with their perfect family/amazing friends. Even their problems are hep and makes you go ‘ooooh, I wish I had that one’. And all the girls have that perfect pout that makes you wonder if you missed The Pout Revolution. There’s a trend pattern, I suppose.

I have decided to make a list of the top five actions on FB that peeve me out so much that I don’t know whether to laugh or cry. So here goes:

5) The Like-rs.

See, it’s ok if you actually like the picture or link or whatever. But to do it just to start a conversation with that guy/girl is just lame. When I find people who have liked almost every picture/link/update in every album/wall of every friend on my list (and theirs), my respect for the ones who NEVER like ANYTHING grows.

(These ones never like because they are too cool to like mere mortal stuff, which is another story altogether.)

4) The ‘Abundant’ Photo Albums.

O.k, so you went on vacation. We, unlike you, are not interested in seeing 3 photos of you absent-mindedly digging your nose or 5 photos of the sand by the beach. We are: 

(i) already familiar with the shape and size of boogers (thank you VERY much) and 

(ii) familiar with the texture and feel of beach sand; some of us have actually been there as well, you know.

A trip to your chacha’s biwi’s brother’s once removed cousin’s gaon does NOT warrant an album of 226 photos.

And we definitely don’t want pictures of your eyes, hands or other body parts, especially not feet. We’re familiar with the concept of Converse too.

Also, try and take pictures of the vacation for the sake of preserving the memory, which is what photos are for in the first place, rather than taking photos to establish your ‘cool’ factor on FB.  

3) ‘Check Inbox’

(Note: I admit that I have been guilty of this one)

If you have EVER sent or received a personal message on FB, you will know that when you have a new message, a red notification appears over your inbox icon. You don’t specifically have to go and wall the concerned party to ‘check inbox’ and make sure that you make everybody on both your lists burn from the knowledge of not knowing the ‘scoop’. No need for the excessive put-on secrecy about a non-happening.

2) The ‘Me’ Albums

Ah, this is my pet peeve. The first time I saw an album titled ‘Me’, I thought maybe the person was asked by an online friend to post a few pictures of themselves so that they could see what he/she looks like. I was gravely mistaken.

I have people on my list who have albums of 100+ photos of ONLY themselves in different poses, photoshoped, tinted, altered and whatnot. I can’t help gape at the sheer i-am-searching-for-an-appropriate-word: Narcissus himself takes a backseat to them. If you have the time to put in THAT much work on that album, then you are even more jobless than I am and that is really saying something.

And you know what’s worse? When other people copy the ‘idea’ and come up with one of their own. End result = feed filled with weird preens and fake pouts. All this has me thinking five times before I upload one picture and I do not know how much more of this I can take before I decide to deactivate my account for good.

1) The Frandship Requests  

My privacy settings are pretty tight, so the only way to contact me is to inbox. Turns out, it is A Bad Idea.

(Note: The following copied directly from my inbox)

“You are look so butiful in profile ya. Can v be friendship request?”

“Hey gurl wanna friendship be with me”

“If u dont mind may i add ur friend list???????”

“aah.. bt jus experienci ppls..!!! bein ma frien?” ( I have to this date not worked out what that means.)

Even,

“Hi, can I join your friendship?” to which I couldn’t resist but say "Dude, you sure you want to JOIN it?" to which he replied "Ok sorry madam.i m not that type of Boy just i like Ur profile that's why i requested Ur friendship.trust me.Forgive me please"

I swear to God that that convo is as real as I love chocolates.

One guy even had the audacity to say, “Hey, send me request”. I asked him if I knew him from somewhere to which he said, “No, but I want to seeing your collage fotos”.

Kill me. With a serrated knife.

Ah, us weird humans.