To Social Addicts, with Love

Disclaimer:
All instances mentioned in this post are based on real people (whom I have met in the journey of my life) and there is nothing fictional about it. This post is not for those of you who are die-hard fans of networking and are living your lives through the much talked about web pages on the Internet. If you know how to live your life with a pinch of salt and can manage to look at its farcical aspects then you can enjoy the pricks and thorns attached with this post albeit in a good humor – Read, compare and laugh at yourself!

Dear Faceple & Tweeple,

Hope you are enjoying the dynamic life of your metaphysical electronic world and sharing some very insightful thoughts with its not-so-connected real section. I have always admired the unceasing enthusiasm with which you live and spread your infectious effervescence while clocking the time.

From past few days I have not being feeling well and I blame it all on you. With your unfading energy and much happening life my enthusiasm and optimism levels seems to have fallen below the quintessential mark and hence it’s now that I have decided to pour out some of my precious and highly confidential thoughts before you.

I have often wondered about the almost mass hysterical impact created by certain sudden phenomenal things in life. It seems as though we have all been born on earth with a single minded dedication to endorse that thing and eat, sleep and drink it with every passing moment of our life.

Few days back I was asked by a very dear friend of mine, via an email, if I was enjoying a good health or not. After my assurance that I was hale and hearty I became curious to know what made him worry about my health and his plain and unpretentious reply came as “You have not been active on Facebook for a while so I was wondering if you have fallen sick!”.

Someone had once said that the world is shrinking, but who knew that the wide network of webs will act as catalyst in further hastening this process. There are millions of websites on Internet today and now almost every tom-dick-harry can boast of a web page belonging to him and her!

I was under the impression that social networking sites were meant for connecting with our friends and keeping the concept of “keep-in-touch” alive in a less formal manner. But I was hopelessly wrong. My silly brain did not know that these websites are more casual form of “Aaj Tak” and need reporting of everything I do or think in my day – or I would be categorized as either orthodox, introvert, antisocial or a distasteful combination of all.

In your world one’s degree of affability is measured against how many friends you have on Facebook or how many people are following you on Twitter, whether you actually possess a charming personality with a pleasant demeanor is of course entirely immaterial. Suddenly the whole equation of relationships gets changed measured by your status on these websites. If you are seeing someone but are projected as single on Facebook, then it is only a matter of time when your love life would either get exposed to the world through some highly excited (read: bean spiller!) friend of yours or it would succumb to its natural death due to your inability to accept it in the public (so would your partner feel).

Don’t you dare think that this networking bug has infected only our social life. While Facebook and Twitter rule the roost in our social circles the corporate world isn’t far from being sabotaged. LinkedIn has opened up platform for people to display their professional credentials, achievements and aspirations in full public glare. For centuries what was considered personal and confidential is now being flaunted with a dash of arrogance. This website also allows you to massage your ego by showing off the recommendations from your colleagues, clients and bosses! Whether you are actually hard worker with passion to learn new things and are also focused and detailed oriented is again reduced to the puny status. Your recruiters are happy as long as their senses are cajoled with your recommendations oozing perfection (read: manipulations).

Some nincompoops are so smitten by social media that a day or two away from these would certainly put them on life saving ventilators. At times it becomes difficult to figure out whether people are actually dumb or are simply unaware of the absence of other people’s interest in their life. How else would you explain situations where they blurt out every single thought cropping up in their minds or slap every picture of their holidays and vacations on our face! I don’t care whether you went to Honolulu or Bermuda triangle with your girlfriend or bought a sexy dress at discounted price from DFO or had a new hair cut. How on earth would your home grown tomatoes or garden peas stir up my soul when a picture of your latest tequila shots in some glitzy pub could not invigorate my mind to say the least?

It is quite amusing when people report every breath that they take on such websites and then cry foul about the privacy issues haunting them. Gone are the good old days when mails or even emails formed the basis for exchanging pleasantries and a phone call would just be a gratifying event. If you have not wished your friends on their birthdays, anniversaries, promotions and weddings on these sites then you certainly don’t care for them! So what if you wished them in person, a public display of affection is a must to reaffirm your continuity in that relationship.

How much is too much is yet to be defined for majority of us especially for the class of people who aren’t yet clear about the boundaries of networking and bombarding!

While I am confident that the population from my part of the world would continue to drift towards your part, I am also hoping that few crazy souls from your world would get some sanity into their heads and join our side of the world to echo my sentiments and prevent the concept of real from blurring into surreal.

Look forward to hear from you soon (not immediately).

Yours Sincerely,
Reaple (Real People)

IPL Discoveries - Cricketing Tharoor Vs Tweetering Modi!

The IPL 2010 series has been doling out high doses of thrilling moments in the lives of cricket lovers from all over the world. With its on-field smashing performances and uncertainty of the results, IPL matches have arrested the undivided attention of cricket buffs and hooked them on to the most gripping, high profile, fast buck churning event in the history of sports. With controversies burgeoning out of IPL series each year, the sensation quotient never seems to take a dip!

Off the field, IPL is scoring equally high on titillating factor – Two mild bomb blasts in Bangalore and formation of two new teams for the 2011 series have kept the interest and focus of people, in this king of entertainment, entirely intact. Adding on to this sensation is the sordid word of war between IPL founder Lalit Modi and Shashi Tharoor, the tech-savvy twittering politician of modern India. While the war has gone far beyond the arena of tweets, into a state of utter clutter, it has also sparked up tales of foul play, match fixing and mud slinging between the various parties closely or remotely connected to cricket!

Modi and Tharoor, each have collected some brownie points for doing their bit in their associated fields. While Modi has redefined the concept of cricket by fathering one of the most glamorous, extravagant and thrill flicks of our times, Tharoor has modernized the face of Indian politician with his suave looks, immaculate English, articulate demeanor, accessible approach and display of a taste for connectivity with our tech savvy aam-junta. Both had brought along with them a change, which was resisted, protested and then gladly accepted by the critics. Bringing them together again, is the current controversy, which puts them at loggerhead with each other seemingly assuring of delving some nasty details about their unseen aspects. Whatever is the outcome of this slander, IPL has highlighted one trend, which is to stay here for sometime – Internet Social Networking.

For those of you, who believe in sharing the ins and outs of your life with the rest of the world, it wouldn't be a surprise to know that the root cause for this entire controversy was mooted through the platform of Twitter! Ah so much for being socially hyperactive internet buffs.

It is quite amusing the way certain information was tweeted on this social networking site and then replied back between these two celebrities. I often wonder, had Twitter not existed in the first place, how would have these celebs lived their moments of glory, agony and dullness? One thing, which stands out tall amidst such mayhem, is that with the overzealous social networking sites, media is getting deprived of uncovering scandals and ignominy which was its forte once upon a time. Facebook, Orkut and Twitter have made “living life, publicly” a style statement. Every tom-dick-harry wants to share what he thought, ate, felt, wore, saw in each moment of his life including burping and farting. With movie stars, politicians and sports champions joining the bandwagon, twittering/scrapping/posting has become only more contemporary and upbeat. Whether it’s Shilpa Shetty asking for what she should be wearing for her next show or Yuvraj Singh applauding his fellow cricketer for his brilliant performance or Rajdeep Sardesai commenting on the recent news updates of our country, all have resorted to the mesmerism of these networking sites.

The Kochi team franchise has dragged many names in the IPL controversy making it one of the worst hit scams in the cricket history. Shashi Tharoor's personal relationships have been tossed around in public by the media while Lalit Modi's sudden wealth amassment and extravagant lifestyle have come under the I-T scrutiny. Tharoor versus Modi saga would soon come to an end and the twittering cricket paramours would know who is neck deep in s**t and who come out with clean chit. One is a politician and the other is a rich influential man, so it would be quite interesting to know who weighs heavier in this tug-of-war. Ironically even during such animosity Modi and Tharoor share the commonality of "B-factor" bête-noire with Modi being sacked by the BCCI and Tharoor being stripped off his portfolio on the ruckus created by BJP! Both the men have lost their power and kingdom on which they were thriving… solidarity of fate?!?! The war which burgeoned from Twitter and involved just Modi and Tharoor has now engulfed the politics and cricket board of India, the two most murky, bureaucratic and lucrative systems of our land. 

So what if IPL still continues of rake big moolah even today, its prime attraction for our people would always be the numerous scandals, which get simmered in it each year. This year in particular has been a tumultuous year for IPL with its creator being dethroned followed by Sachin’s team’s debacle in the IPL finals. Unlike the earlier champions, Rajasthan Royals and Deccan Chargers, who had swept away victory in all matches played till the finals, Mumbai Indian’s became a fiasco, which fell flat right in the final match! Media is abuzz with talks of the unexpected new IPL champions with some murmurs of match-fixing, result rigging et al.

Three years of glory has turned Indian Premier League into a Midas touch, which promises to shoot you into fame, albeit good or bad is not guaranteed by it. Dhoni leading his team to winning trophy has once again reaffirmed his exuberance and panache of being the most successful Indian captain. With the finals of IPL 2010 coming to an end, cricket fever might have began to subside, but sacking of Lalit Modi by BCCI has further generated enough heat to keep the show going on.

All we now have to do is to stay glued on to our television sets and watch the fate of the man who built the most entrancing empire in the world of cricket. While I write this line I get sudden flashes of Ramalingam Raju’s face in my mind and the unnatural comparison between the two now appears very natural to me. We have to wait for the verdict to be out to see if Modi trails in the footsteps of Satyam’s founder or comes out clean to lash back at BCCI. In the meantime, IPL kept its side of promise of sensation by revealing the twittering mania in Modi and cricketing fever in Tharoor! Long live the grandeur of IPL and infectious ramification of Twitter.