Social Butterfly

So I logged into my Spacebook or is it Myface to see what was up with all my “friends” but encountered all kinds of weirdness, i promptly logged out again before I succumbed to the stupidity and told everybody my status. I know, I know, checking the status of your “friends” four or five times a day has become a way of life and you can’t imagine life without knowing that Festus says “this is it”. But when did we become such fans of madness? Random sentences made without context often left like vomit on the sidewalk for dogs to consume. There is certain arrogance and over inflated sense of self-worth that make us assume that our “friends” are interested in knowing “I just left the comfy chair”. The sins of the fathers are no longer visited on the children but on the 547 friends who must wake up to your live feeds. Everybody is a fan of something, sometimes it is not enough to be a friend of someone, you also have to be a fan to their business, join their group and link to their blogs. Do not forget that you have the option to “Like This” or that, without having to ever bother explaining what it is you find so likable. Social networking is a lot like prostitution, you can’t be a part-timer, once you start, you are in. The joy of the new age, the exhilaration of discovering people from your past, whom you thought were beyond your sphere of contact forever; suddenly only a friend request away, has been replaced by the need to remind your “friends” you still exist. Someone once told me status updates is alot like walking around shouting random sentences at the crowd on a street corner. I could not agree more, I plead guilty as charged though, I have given in to the compulsive urge before myself many many times,.. unfortunately. Having used the anonymity of our new village square to make unnecessary and mostly uninformative noises in the process of updating my status, I have become an internet vagabond, trolling cyber space in search of …… what? I am not sure exactly, could it be validation, applause or condemnation? Certainly can’t be last, but all three are available in abundant supply on the internet. My day is only as productive as the times when I am not online trying to elicit a reaction from strangers, validation is the now measured by page views, click counts and retarded comments associated to my sometimes fantastically mediocre writing. John the Baptist preaching in the desert managed to gather an audience, makes you wonder if the people were initially attracted by the spectacle of a wild eyed man talking to himself or the indisputable truth of his message. It is the same question that I have for people with 1000 friends, is it the rodeo or the clown? One of them is the reason for the infection. And all these pictures with only you in it, why is it necessary? Picture after picture, of you staring into the same empty space. Sometimes the pictures are sideways, you know, the ones you take….. of yourself with your phone? Why do you feel the need to share this with your “friends”? Some of these pictures would qualify as low grade porn, but it is important you post them to your web-page; you just know everybody wants to see them. “Everything in moderation” except for our hourly status updates which should be as outrageous and as loud as we can make them; because you see, we need the attention. I am a little tired of people that pose rhetorical questions to themselves, with the hope that their “friends” will jump in for a swim in the muddy waters of silly question meets silly person. We seem willing to indulge each other to no end, arms joined at the elbows; we have formed a giant link pulling each other, maybe even the human race into the sewers of intellectual debasement. Yes, finally, please stop sending your “friends” electronic bear hugs, they are completely useless.

Edu Nnadi