Wednesday, July 14, 2010

Ramp walk model

The other day I was chatting with my friend Denzil, about my now-favorite topic, football. One thing led to another and we ended up discussing the ‘desi mentality’ of looking for masala in every situation. Well, my unwarranted interest in Octopus Paul and not the game was his single point of reference. Sigh!

Anyway, I digress, right in the beginning of the post this time.

Soon after that enlightening discussion on ‘desi mentalities’ (which I hope to dedicate a post to, some time in the future, completely credited to Denzil), I ended up asking him the quintessential ‘What’s up?’ question. Before he could even think up a reply substantiating his existence on Earth, there I was, typing away to glory, giving a detailed account of what he had done the past five days.

No, there is no correlation between my obsession with the occult octopus and my dete(du)ctive skills. Only that I have been following Facebook way too regularly, knowingly or unknowingly stalking people’s minute by minute updates on their life stories.

It is scary, at two levels so to say.

The first is to realize the level of vulnerability I am exposing myself to. All of us, am sure, have at least some 300-400 ‘friends’, most of whom we have not met in ages, who are perhaps just acquaintances, or those we met for once in our whole lifetime. Merely because of an insane need to satiate the networking hunger, we are ‘friends’ and would be aware of everything about each other on a dynamic basis.

What’s news here, so you ask. Despite knowing this, our illusionary returns seem to outweigh the risks, life goes on. And, that is why FB is such a hit anyway.

That brings me to the next fear, my biggest one about being way too well connected. It is the fear of being misunderstood with that single random update or comment that I post up there. It is as if Big Brother is watching me. Eternally. The world is following my every word on FB (I do tend to exaggerate :D). And, as I have mentioned elsewhere on this blog, it is a heterogeneous world that is following me. So, each one who sees my words up there arrives at his / her own conclusion about what is running through my mind. Now, I cannot really blame anyone, for I do the same – getting judgmental based on otherwise innocuous statements that flourish out there.

The world, thanks to FB, has become one big masala newspaper, where each of us tries to figure out what is up and about in the other’s life, who has hooked up with whom and who has broken up, who has quit their jobs and who has got a transfer. Sleaze and jazz, a la filmdom, does not seem to have spared the otherwise 'aam aadmi' FB world too.

Or, perhaps, we like all the attention, being the center of attraction, be it positive or negative. And, there is some sense of purposefulness we seem to achieve out of our own little celebrity statuses, without exactly having to do a ramp walk or act in a movie!

11 comments:

Rainmusings said...

Oh I guess even Iam stalking many of them in FB. Well on the post - exactly my toughts, written very well by you.

Deepa said...

And don't you get psyched out by the "real time views" feed on ur blog ?? I do definitely :) Another extension of the same funda described on ur post I suppose

Btw I just escaped from the situation, and have not logged onto FB for a long time now

Shreya said...

Haha. I like it. It's like one big mohalla.

Unknown said...

First of all i would like to thank you for giving me this honor of being mentioned in ur post. Not many or blessed enough for this. :P
Im expecting the "desi mentality" post to hit the net very soon.. Are there any promos for ur post? ... exclusive premiere? ...sneaky preview of quotes in the post ? etc....
btw in my defense... i post abt anything tht i find interesting, or which makes me happy n very rarely does it go unliked or uncommented which suggests that its not so silly/mundane or uninteresting :)

Kavity said...

@Varsha:
Thanks!

@Deepa:
Not yet. However, I have this strange feeling that one day I will get psyched out enough to wipe out my entire online presence in this world.

@Shreya:
What is a 'mohalla'?:D

@Denzil:
Most welcome. Yes, the 'desi mentality' as looked at by pseudo desis like you will soon be publicised, much in your name ;)

Unknown said...

Wonderful post, Kavitha! I shld admit that am becoming a fan of ur writing these days :)

Kavity said...

@Shobhana:

That's really nice of you! Thanks so much :)

Dream Maker said...

How accurately you have described this FB syndrome,Kavitha.Loved this post..shall definitely read the previous ones too.

Kavity said...

@Rajashree: Thanks! :)

King Vishy said...

Thank God am still not 'hooked on' to FB in that sense.. I login the same way I used to with Orkut - once every day or so, and logout in 10-15 minutes.. So I have not felt that fear of being 'stalked' (or the devious pleasure of stalking someone)..

But your argument seems perfectly logical, now am wondering if this is only because I don't have access to fb at office :D

Kavity said...

@Vishy: Yeah, not having FB at office does help quite a bit. Those were the days when I used to log into FB once in a week and stay on for 10 minutes, and log out, as cluless of what was happening in the world as I had been before logging in.
Now.. sigh!