The Facebook Chronicles

As you all know, I am seen online only all the time. Across all social media platforms. No, it's not because I have got nothing to do. I mean it's true that I am free almost all the time, just that it's not the reason. The reason I am here is that I am one of those lucky ones who are paid to hang out at the social media platforms. Whiling my time around here, I keep observing the behavior and trends that take rounds. I couldn't help but write them all down at a place. Perhaps one fine day when Facebook would be dead, this piece will serve as a helpful tool to the one who need referring to it.

I love you and I want to remember your birthday. 

If one of your friends have sent you a "I want to add you to My Birthday Calendar" request, you will have the same request sent to you by at least a dozen more friends in the next one week. At one point in time, you will actually scream out - "Nahi chahiye...birthday calendar request nahi chahiye...bhaiyaa aage jaao" to your screen.

Photographer mai hoon, SLR idhar hai! 

Whoever owns a high tech camera, will have a profile picture posing with the camera, clicking something. Mostly it would be his/her reflection in the rear view mirror of a car, clicking the mirror. Then there would be albums, all clicked by the high end camera, edited in Picasa. Most of them will have a page for their 'photography'. More often than not it would be 'First Name Last Name Photography'. Not to forget the requests to like these pages by these friends. After 3-4 pages, you would go back to the "Nahi chahiye..." dialogue from the last point.

One more request and I SHALL CRUSH YOU!

Yes, they are the heartless, shameless souls who have gotten addicted to the Facebook dope 'Candy Crush' and are just sadistic enough to keep bugging the rest of us by sending unending Candy Crush requests.

We're in louve

People who are actually seeing someone in their lives, mostly stay away from the 'relationship status' bit on Facebook. The ones who really enjoy and give absolute meaning to that feature of Facebook are the ones who are about to get married. Especially if it's an arranged marriage. The moment the match gets confirmed, the first update 'In a relationship' happens. It stays for a few days, because the next inevitable one 'Engaged' happens. Sometimes the gap between the first and second status is only a week but then you know, it's the only time when they can be the cool ones with 'In a relationship' status. How many of us can actually afford that otherwise?

Switty switty switty tera pyaar chaahida

The Facebook romeos have it easy these days. They don't have to actually go after a girl singing the song. They don't have to take the pains of having to convey it to the girl that they are interested in her. They just have to start liking her pictures, posts, updates, comments. Just go on a liking spree for each and every post of the girl to tell her that you're interested in her. The number of likes decrease with the decreasing levels of these romeos' interests. 

The grammar pricks

These are the pricks who just have taken the onus of correcting everyone's grammar on Facebook. They just can't stand spelling errors or stand grammatical errors. Therefore they assume their moral duty is to correct everything that's spelled wrongly and comment on every thread with the corrected word/sentence/punctuation attached with that bloody asterix(*). They think they are uplifting everyone's standards and spreading the knowledge while everyone else just quietly wants them to die and burn in hell for eternity.

I am happy and you must know it!

There would be people who are extremely happy in their lives. Their husbands are the best in the world. Their parents are the best in the world. Their kids are the best in the world. Their jobs are the best in the world. Their roommates are the best in the world. Their hometown. their friends, their sabziwala, the autowala who drove them to the office...bloody everyone they come across happens to be THE BEST IN THE WORLD!!! (Yes, the capital letters are intended. People belonging to this category end up using the 'all caps' feature a lot. The exclamation marks are intentional too.)

I am watching you

The stalkers. They stalk you. They won't like your statuses. They won't like your pictures. They would be seen only lurking around. Their likes are restricted for the mean/witty/sarcastic comments that might get posted on your posts by someone. One fine day you realize they have done this activity to almost all of your posts. That's when you realize they are monitoring your timeline and it creeps you out a little. You feel like removing them from your friends list. However it strikes you that stalking you and making those attempts at supporting your critics might be the only interesting thing they get to do all day. So you oblige and let them be.

There are plenty of more categories. For example: The dog lovers. They own/owned a dog. That's about it. That's where the online posts start and end. There is nothing to their personalities that doesn't revolve around dogs. There are whiners. Their life is a drama and you're all welcomed to be a part of it. There are the hot ones. 'Hot headed' ones to be precise. They can give a certain Mr. Goswamy a run for his money when talking about politics, fuming over the state of governance and seeking the answers that India needs. There are also the cool ones. They are just too cool to talk politics. Too cool to celebrate Indian festivals. They just talk smoke, dope, rock, and some random shit that a normal man can't understand. Yes, they are also the ones who will end all of their dialogues with '...and shit.' 

And yet, Facebook bring all of us idiots together on one platform. To observe each other's differences so that we can make fun of others, get jealous of others, get a high out of how our lives are better than others, or you know, just reflect on how free we are to actually pay attention to status updates and links that take you to such crappy blog posts. 

:D