Single. Married. In a relationship. It’s complicated. They should include “Confused” and “Out of Order” as well. Nevertheless, the choices go on and on and only a person’s mood or state of mind is the limit. With the dawning of social networking in the world wide web, the universe had suddenly become one big reality TV. You fall in love, people will know it. You get your heart broken, people will know it. You break your fingernail, people will know it. You have an upset tummy, people will know it. Your neighbor has a foot fetish, people will know it. We had become instant celebrities by our own making. We had knowingly and deliberately placed ourselves under a microscope and the whole world can be our audience if we choose it to be. We can now legitimately claim fame, even if it’s just among the people in our friends list or among those who follow us on Twitter, just like Paris Hilton and Lindsay Lohan. Bwahahahaha. Evil laugh. It seems like we offered ourselves through an initial public offering and now we are publicly held!
But what’s in a status? Is it a measure of one’s humanity, a glimpse of a passing surge of emotion or mood, or a masked reality that we want to project to the world? When you think about it, it could be as empty as a traditional politician’s promises or as heavily laden with calories and trans-fat like that of a supersized McDonald’s meal. For whatever it’s worth, we like making our status known and knowing other people’s as well. In other words, our status is a subject of our present pre-occupation which is voyeurism, where we are both at the giving and at the receiving end at the same time. Surprisingly, we have developed a certain liking to this activity. We derive a certain level of elation every time we post something and people just cannot help but make comments. We put stimuli out there with the intention to be noticed, to be talked about, to be heard, to be read. What ever happened to “it’s not about being read, it’s about being written”? The same thing goes for blogs, bulletin boards, etc. I tried to follow this principle and was successful for about two years, priding myself for keeping a strictly personal (note: should not be read as “confidential”) blog where I can release the innate angst that comes with being a doomed member of Generation-X or just simply let out the what’s left of the literary juices that my brain contains, until recently when I allowed others to partake in my cerebral masturbation and find out the sordid thoughts hiding in the deep recesses of my mind. Bwahahahaha. Yet another evil laugh!
Just like everyone else, I suppose, I cannot help but answer that perennial question inside that box when I open my FB account: what’s on your mind? It’s maddening! I have to answer somehow. And the moment I do, the ball is gonna to start rolling and before I know it, a simple line, maybe even thoughtless and candid, will cause an avalanche of comments. And most probably than not, sub-topics will crop up and all the participants and the rest of humanity will find themselves in the middle of this cornucopia of things that will more or less come to a meaningless and unceremonious end! And on to the next person with a slightly interesting status and the vicious cycle begins again!
After going through this repetitive exercise over and over again, I find myself dizzy with all the information about these people I call friends that sometime they just get all mixed up causing me to think that maybe my new status should be: OUT OF ORDER!
But what’s in a status? Is it a measure of one’s humanity, a glimpse of a passing surge of emotion or mood, or a masked reality that we want to project to the world? When you think about it, it could be as empty as a traditional politician’s promises or as heavily laden with calories and trans-fat like that of a supersized McDonald’s meal. For whatever it’s worth, we like making our status known and knowing other people’s as well. In other words, our status is a subject of our present pre-occupation which is voyeurism, where we are both at the giving and at the receiving end at the same time. Surprisingly, we have developed a certain liking to this activity. We derive a certain level of elation every time we post something and people just cannot help but make comments. We put stimuli out there with the intention to be noticed, to be talked about, to be heard, to be read. What ever happened to “it’s not about being read, it’s about being written”? The same thing goes for blogs, bulletin boards, etc. I tried to follow this principle and was successful for about two years, priding myself for keeping a strictly personal (note: should not be read as “confidential”) blog where I can release the innate angst that comes with being a doomed member of Generation-X or just simply let out the what’s left of the literary juices that my brain contains, until recently when I allowed others to partake in my cerebral masturbation and find out the sordid thoughts hiding in the deep recesses of my mind. Bwahahahaha. Yet another evil laugh!
Just like everyone else, I suppose, I cannot help but answer that perennial question inside that box when I open my FB account: what’s on your mind? It’s maddening! I have to answer somehow. And the moment I do, the ball is gonna to start rolling and before I know it, a simple line, maybe even thoughtless and candid, will cause an avalanche of comments. And most probably than not, sub-topics will crop up and all the participants and the rest of humanity will find themselves in the middle of this cornucopia of things that will more or less come to a meaningless and unceremonious end! And on to the next person with a slightly interesting status and the vicious cycle begins again!
After going through this repetitive exercise over and over again, I find myself dizzy with all the information about these people I call friends that sometime they just get all mixed up causing me to think that maybe my new status should be: OUT OF ORDER!
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