The Sho Sha on Social Media

Any references to the living are not coincidental but very much intentional. If you get offended easily, I suggest you close this tab now and go on with your life as this never happened.

Clearly you haven’t stopped reading it, So I’m gonna apologise in advance for my chutzpah! 

Social Media has taken socialising to another level. Earlier socialising happened only during special occasions, parties or weddings. But today, we socialise with everyone on almost daily basis if not hourly. There is a different pressure of looking good, sharing our lives and showcasing that one is living it up! This SHO- SHA on social media has given birth to different characters on our Facebooks and Instas. Here is to them! Some get on our nerve and some unnerve us. Talking about unnerving...

Femme Fatale : They are the divas and muses of our social media. They have at least 100+ likes on every photo. They also have some serious followers who will not miss to like or comment on their photos. These women light up our Facebook walls with perfectly posed and efficiently photoshopped images at exquisite ‘looking' destinations. You will never find an unruly hair strand, an uneven complexion or lack of pose with them. While the petty commoners like me struggle to find one decent photo to change our year old dp. But sometimes these diva go overboard and forget the golden rule of less is more. Thats when their posts quickly turn from class to crass, too frequent, too many.
But hey! In the era of ‘in the sight, on the mind’, can we really blame them?
These women put social media to its perfect use of instant gratification and personal branding. Without them, our facebooks, instas and twitters will be all too boring.

PS: They have some secret admirer or gossipers too, whom we don’t find in their 'likes' or 'comments' section. I call them ‘The Anonymous’. More on them later.

The Looove Birds : Once upon a time there was a couple who got engaged and all hell broke loose on Facebook. Every morning I woke up and saw a love poetry or a love song staring at me on my Facebook wall. It was from Mr X to Miss Y, but why the hell was it on my wall ? I thought, it would pass, but no. Soon the frequency of posts went up to several times a day. It was like walking on marine drive and feeling that you were intruding the privacy of the couples doing unspeakable things there. Shush!

At one time, my level of embarrassment went directly proportional to their level of desperation. I was about to file a harassment case. But thank God they got married and peace restored on my Facebook wall. Its not that I don’t see lovebirds posting pictures of average dinners as date nights and vacations full of PDAs. But this one tops the horror of my memory!

PS: The extra O's in the 'Looove Birds' are for overdoing!

The Couple : These are the people whose marital status is updated with posts of prewedding photos and videos. Suddenly, you will find, that shy guy from your college, who could barely speak to women, is charming a girl with his antics. Or a girl, who’s momma would be looking at the boy’s janampatri before letting her talk, is romancing under the tree. It seems like the only way a videographer can make a pre wedding movie is by showing a doe eyed girl in gown and mad in love boy in tuxedo. And of course, how can I forget the tagline ‘Once in a while...love gives us a fairytale…’. And I thought we were the land of “The Arranged Marriages’! Huh! 

By the way, this all is only warm up, followed by wedding photos, the much in love honeymoon in 'pardes' and the list goes on.

The Al..bummers : These peeps are not satisfied with one photo or two or ten for that matter. So they will bombard you with 30-40 photos at a time. Apart from their clothes, you can hardly make out difference between their photos from different occasions. Sometimes I feel they have misunderstood Facebook to be a swipe in swipe out machine. So every time they go out or celebrate something, it takes an album of its own.

PS: An insider told me, that they are very sensitive about who did or didn’t like or comment on their posts. So you know what to do to remain in their good books. Wink! Wink!

The baby bloomers : Well these are your '16 going 17' cousins. They declare their love for that girl in their class, share some serious quotes (I wonder where they copy this stuff from) with equally weird selfies. And their every post will usually have 20-30 people tagged. All I can say is that, just like us now, 10 years down the line, these kids would be looking at their social media profiles, saying “Could I be that stupid?”. Nah! Reread the last line Chandler Bing style : Could I Beee that stupid? That’s Right!

PS: I literally cringe, seeing some of my teenage posts!

The Anonymous : They watch, laugh and smirk at all our posts on social media. Femma fatales! they even see all your photos. If they find something funny or crass by their standard, they will enthusiasticaly gossip about it amongst their friends. Some of them are creepy enough to take screenshots of what they call 'naiveness’. (You know right, that they didn’t say naive, I was being polite there). They are as much into social media as that daily spammer. But they don’t leave a single trace. It might even seem that they open their social media once a year just to change their dp. They are ‘The Anonymous’!

#TheHashtaggers: These guys are all about hashtags. Sometimes the length of their hashtags would even exceed the size of their actual posts. When they are in lack of more words, they would just repeat, such as #fam #famjam #family #mafamilia etc etc. And when they are not satisfied with even that, add a word from another language just for that extra zing such as #mylove #miamor. 

But sometimes these hashtags are lifesavers too. Recently, a guy posted his topless selfie with a caption ‘Baby you are beautiful’. For a second I was in utter shock! I understand self appraise. I also understand different sexual orientation. But this !

Thank God for a tiny hashtag on a side that said #Kochi and thats when I noticed the beach in the background. Sanity prevailed once again…

You must be wondering 'well now we are used to of them and the water is all under the bridge'. Well, wait till you get hit by the storm of babymoons, babyshowers, baby shoots, babies and babies crawling on your Facebook wall.

But in the end, whether we love or hate these people, criticise or adore them, or, ignore or applaud them. They are the salt and pepper of our Social Media lives! Without them, our ‘social’ lives would be too mundane, isn’t it? 
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...until next read !

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I am a writer by passion, a petroleum engineer by accident and a proud Indian by origin. You can connect with me on facebook, twitter and instagram @curiousinkpot