Tuesday, May 18, 2010

A Requiem - Facebook



Dear Facebook:
I don’t know if I must say you were the puppy love in my adult life, but I know I can be a bitch! Nope I didn’t say Rakhi Sawant. But I don’t think I miss you today, I never did fall in love with you to miss you now and ever. But before I say why I hated you, here is why I liked you (I didn’t say loved yewww!)

Honestly and sincerely you were a bridge that connected me with my friends and colleagues miles away. I could have connected with them through emails, phone calls and letter, but then you were cool and instant to announce their mood swings, flings, week day brouhaha and weekend knock out parties. Those pokes, messages, and writings on walls and status messages were simple outstanding. But everything came with a price!

Were you friendly to interact and play? Hell no…you were cumbersome, you had lunar cycles apart from your PMS days and remember you also brought in malicious virus and obscenity to my page. Nevertheless I held you in esteem just to stay in touch with my friends.

Did you bring in the right play mates? I declared schools I attended, colleges I bunked, and pricks I worked with on your portal brought me more trouble. They assaulted me with their friendship request without giving a second thought. It was an online karma chase!

I was naïve and I blurted that I was here to network and make friends and hence I had to oblige many (stranger) requests that came my way. Over a period of time I found my Facebook infested with people who I never knew or I never wanted to see again in my life. Now what do I do with them?

Redemption…redemption….redemption…is it possible to redeem bad karmas on FB? I didn’t know how to escape or redeem and the only way I found was to deactivate my account on FB. I was happy with my decision and didn’t have any cravings and withdrawal symptoms. I didn’t receive any emails from my friends why I went missing on FB.

But then millions were on FB like it was oxygen for their online life and within six months I was again sucked into the horrible world of Facebook. By then there was news about improved privacy features and protection against malicious virus, but none against strangers and friend stealers.

But still a few features remained as perils. I real life I run away from people in Amway and other pyramidal marketing schemes but today it was Mafia war and Farmville request. How frivolous and juvenile can you be? Your entertainment application sucks.

You gave suggestions for friendships and kept incessantly dropping them on my page like relief packets of Kandahar. Suggestions were horrible and useless. Rather you could have educated your users on privacy, how to choose friends, difference between friendship and acquaintance, what to publish, what kind of requests to entertain and how to avoid befriending and solicitation. Remember so many have lost their jobs and lost friendships because of you!

You brought people to my page without my consent and then you make me look like a henchman when I execute them. Yes, that is one appreciative feature in FB. I can do a mass burial or silent execution without any hue and cry. Nobody knows about their burial until they miss my quirky status updates and decide to investigate why they are not part of it anymore. Now those who get executed feel even more humiliated and miserable. With more fumes guzzling than the active volcano in Iceland they go around bitching and deriding me in our friends circle.

You worked 24 by 7 and filled my mailbox with alerts from my friends and friend’s friends. You made me wake up in the night and check for updates. I was getting hooked on to you like marijuana and morphine.

I joined you with the objective keeping in touch with my close friends who accepted me for what I am and for what I am not. But sadly today everybody seems to have an opinion of me, even those who’ve not met in real life, but in the online world. Online world is shallow and hollow.

Today I have friends take me off their list because they don’t like my friends, some have hidden my messages from being displayed on their and some have used their privacy settings to ostracize me. The wonderful world of Facebook has turned into a world of Faceoff. Not sure if it was because of their lack of maturity or maturity of the application, but I have lost some of my friends today. You have separated couples too. You’ve made parents sleepless and snoopy. You’ve made relationships like instant noodle. I have lost more than I gained on facebook.
You need to be executed!

I have realized there is no short cut to friendship and relationship I am back into the world of emails, phone calls and hand written letters.

You are the Saddam of the online world. Sorry FB I had to kill you! I sincerely hope you don’t reincarnate.