Facebook sucks. Especially if you are a regular and have to shift through tons of unwanted, unwarranted and uncalled for, unsavory posts on a daily basis. As, save for their idiosyncratic streaks, some of these posters are actually friends you would rather not block out completely, you don’t really have a choice. Some Facebook addicts are already suggesting that facebook incorporate a “hate” button so that at the least we have the right to have our protests / displeasure recorded, but what the heck? Facebook is a fun place where you seek “recharge” and friends, with all their faults, are just that, friends. As a matter of fact, if you go through their monotonous posts over a period of time, you will even identify trends and I spend many hours typecasting them, filing them neatly under labeled personality types. One advantage of doing this is that the moment you see a digression from the historical habits, you know something is seriously wrong with the guys and can immediately call whichever asylum they have been straight jacketed in.
Here’s my list of favorites:
- The Farmville Fomenter – There’s this industrialist (?) friend of mine who has nothing better to do than play Farmville in shareholder paid time. He greets me every morning with his latest escapades in the Farm with his army of pet pigs and considers me worthy of being informed that on the 16th level his pigs will become prophets and that he has been blessed with a bumper crop of lettuces. I’m sure his shareholders will share the cheer as his company has skipped dividends for the last three financial years. Meanwhile I have 836 pending requests to play everything from Aquarium to Mafia Wars with him.
- The Narendra Modi apologist – The creators of Marvel Comics were all huge fans of Na-Mo (history be damned), or so would these guys have you to believe. “Modi to ban mint flavoured Chewing Gum – promote desi saffron snauf instead” and such inane mass produced messages are bombarded by them in the vain hope that serial stupidity and rank dumbness will help win your vote. Buddy, I have nothing against your leader’s Gujrathi Ashmita, or for that matter your misplaced political ambitions however rabidly communal they may be, just leave my wall alone?
- The Photo tagging reverse voyeur – This is the one you probably met in a party 27 years ago and don’t even remember the name. Yet you are faithfully tagged in every photograph they post (and they post faster than speeding bullets). Imagine your entire friend list greeted with “Aunty Linda and her favourite Rikki-walla, Kolkata, Circa 1950” and “Dayanand in Dollar Banyan stepping on Dog Doo” pics. Gimme a break. Dayanad may be your darling eye candy, but his middle aged frame replete with grey hairs is a serious affront to humanity, sensibility be damned.
- The Baba buccaneer – The Baba has a blessing for everything – from lost Valentines to speculation profits, each accompanied by a suitably sepia toned picture of the Baba’s rickety frame. When not hushing up child molesting cases in the Ashram, the Baba’s PR department mails these mass produced propaganda missiles to the faithful who in turn add their messages like “I posted it to 3700 people and within 29 seconds my pet goldfish was blessed with a hard on. My neighbour ignored the Baba’s blessing and his wife came back from the dead” before littering on you wall.
- The goody foodie – Do pictures of food have aphrodisiac qualities? Seriously, why would so many of us regularly post pictures of whatever they eat? Do these foodie posters get some perverse delight in posting pictures of their every meal, imagined or otherwise? Is there some sexual gratification to be had by posting pictures of juicy ribs? God knows. And thank you God, that facebook is not smell enabled, yet!
- The stalker commentator – This one is a compulsive pile on. Post a picture, any picture, and he has to comment, mostly inane and meaningless stuff. I used to feel pretty pissed till I saw that they do the same to every picture posted – especially saving their gems like “sexxxxxyyy” and “hooooottttt” for all women: age, looks, location, orientation notwithstanding.
- The Self aggrandizer – “That’s Satyajit Ray, smiling at me from the photograph as I cut the cake on my pet cat’s birthday” surely takes the cake and I never cease to be floored by these vainglorious nincompoops. Why, one even posted the screenshot of a D-grade Hollywood producer’s homepage that featured his mug shot among the fans! Photoshopped images with celebrity backdrops snapped in Bangkok airport are so last year! what never ceases to amaze me is the serious number of people who greet these posts with jaw dropped amazement.
- The marketing mosquito – These are the self made and self styled facebook experts. One has 237 pictures of him writing his next script all over your wall (with offline requests to like them as well), followed by twice as many pictures of matching self styled experts going through them. That his script never makes into films goes to prove the existence of God, but that is another story. He is basking in his glory, even as illiterate Chit Fund owners and scrap dealers flock around him and gather his crap on movie making.
- The intellectual deadwood: This one is a jerk of all jerks. He writes in vernacular and maintains a snooty air of superiority taking broad sweeps at everything from the prices of onions to the side effects of Viagra. His prize posts however are his attempts at poetry which his wife is happy to have him share on the wall having singularly suffered them for the past 17 years of marriage.
- The Been there done that Kaizar – This obnoxious moron will be the first one to claim to have visited / done everything – and the first one to denounce with equally alacrity. If you believe him, every new food joint opening in the city serves a “yuk” spread. Every blockbuster is a damp squib. Every star hotel has terrible service and every celebrity is a moron. Yes, he’s the one who tweeted his pictures with the eternal words “at the 4th urinal in the Oberoi’s pulling up the YKK zipper of my Le Bon trousers ”!
- The Net-dead necrophilic – He’ the eternal “wanna be” who is unfortunately not net savvy (yes, there still are some dinosaurs that have dodged extinction) and has hired hands to maintain the profiles. They are mostly harmless as the duds they hire are worse than they are and can be identified by the bloomers they post, referring to themselves (or the account holders, or whatever) in the third person generally in the company of an insignificant other: “Tollywood trinket loading on free ice cream at Iftaar party hosted by Mr Z. Mr X third from left” or, “city geisha’s flashing the v-sign. Mr X seen scratching his head in the background”. You are supposed to feel proud to have the post in your wall. So stop whining and feel good.
- The Conspiracy Chroniclers – The Taj Mahal was originally a temple of Shiva. John Lennon was born Jamna Lal in Jamnagar, his best songs were actually the bhajans of Jala bapu of Jabbalpur. The Red Fort was actually built by Sher Shah (who was really Sher Singh). Even Jesus Christ was a Kashmiri Brahmin who was forced on the cross by the infidels. These guys have a theory, whispered exclusively in their ears by “insiders” along with irrefutable proof that the ASI has suppressed. Oh I forgot, the Nehru Gandhi family is squarely to be blamed and if you repost their revelations to a hundred of your friends and they in turn do the same, then India will regain her lost glories in exactly 17 days and justice will be done along with the obliteration of corruption for all times to come! Jai Ho!
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