Yosemite.

Friday, April 3, 2009

Glorifying mediocrity

Warning - This may hurt your sentiments.
Is it only me who feels the sharp rise in stupid people around them? Have you suddenly started noticing fully grown adults hell bent upon glorifying and publicly broadcasting their own mediocrities. Maybe its because of these social networking websites like Facebook, Orkut, Twitter or maybe its because we were inherently that stupid and these networking websites just gave a vent to our dumb tendencies. Visit any social networking site and you are bound to get overwhelmed with the stupidity of a zillion people. Their dumb "status" updates and their dumb comments on other people's status updates. A 35 year old woman is going through a breakup and she is broadcasting it to her entire group of two hundred people that "boys are stupid". And when she is not going through a break up she is broadcasting how her fucking dog sprays his pee and what part of her bedroom has he crapped in and what color of shit does he excrete. And you'll find two or three of her trusted friends commenting on her broadcasted message on how even their dogs' shit has been green today. I guess it must be Saint Patrick's day then, huh? Dumb bitches. Sometimes nobody replies to her messages and you see her own replies to her own messages. What a fucked up lonely life you must be living. And this is not an isolated case. Its easy to find such dumb-asses everywhere.
I get the concept of status updates, it lets you post something interesting about yourselves, some cool incident or something out of the ordinary, not stuff like "I was totally exhausted in the gym today" (like every other day), and that "Life is tough" (like we don't know that already), and that "I am going downtown for some great food" (like every other fucking weekend). Oh here is another one "KW is busy busy busy"(like we all are lukkhas upto no good). Ah here is an interesting story - one girl in my list was changing the damn carpets in her damn apartment and for that she had to move her stuff off the floor. For one whole month her status updates involved the progress like how she has now trashed that shitload of junk that she had been accumulating all her pathetic life and donated her old shoes and clothes and what not. For one entire month she described how she cleaned up her dingy fucking apartment and solicited advice from everybody in her friends list on what to do of her red platform heels and used hair clips. Who the FUCK cares?

Another self-adulatory bug that has bitten people is childhood pictures. I understand we all find ourselves cute when we were little and I don't mind seeing an occasional childhood picture of my friends. But it gets weird when entire albums are updated with them in different stages of undress, looking like dorks, mouths drooling, smiling, grinning, crying and what not. I don't want so much detail. I don't want to know that one of my friends wore a pink handkerchief as a langoti and that his penis kept slipping out through it. And there will always be some dumb fucking friends of theirs commenting on those photos "oh how cuuuutteeeeeee you look yaaar".

And whats up with all the nostalgia photos. People love to get nostalgic. I get it, its fun to reminisce about your school days, your picnics, your old friends, your college, etc. But for nostalgia to feel valuable it needs time and maybe a few achievements from your side. One gaandu just graduated from a third class college with some worthless degree and is out already posting photos of his college in an album titled "GOOOOODDD OLDDDDD DAYSSSSSSS". "Old DAYSSS DA BESSSSST TIMMEEEEE OFFFFF MYYYY LIFEEEEE".

Its also bewildering to see the bullshit lies they write glorifying themselves. Their profiles are adorned with how smart,beautiful, great, mysterious, philanthropic, ambitious they are. How they want to change the world and run great companies one day. Bullshit I say. Try to first clear that exam that you have been so miserably failing in. When terrorists attacked Mumbai last year one of my friends who was about to travel to India from US updated her status "Soon I will be in Mumbai to heal the grieving". Fucking lying baboons filled with hot-air! When she did go to Bombay her days and nights were spent partying and wasting away as always. Another contact of mine has a habit of starting e-groups "Fight against poverty", "Save Trees", "Save the earth", "Fight against Terrorism" , like he gets up in the morning, brushes his teeth, drinks his coffee, combs his balding head and starts some dumb fucking e-group. This kind of casual join-a-chutiya-group probably dilutes the efforts of those few organizations that are actually doing something worthwhile. People joining these e-groups get a false sense that they are doing something immensely beneficial to the world like "Oh I am part of the 'save the earth' and 'save electricity' and 'earth hour' group, yep, we meet online and talk about fucking bullshit". Another contact who got laid off from his dumb no-brainer job and couldn't find another job here, had to go back to India and is updating his status from India as if he still lives in the US - like how he had a steak-burger and Budweiser from a high end restaurant in Colaba or how he is excited about watching the finale of some dumb fucking American show that he used to follow here. Another one writes that he has thought of a brilliant new business idea that will make him rich - yeah rite - a brilliant idea and you are publicizing it on Facebook ?

And as if thats not enough whats up with the horrible quizzes that they take. I took a couple for trial "do your parents love you" and "what your friends think about you". I mean who the fuck would take that quiz? Shouldn't you already know? And if you don't already know you think a dumb quiz would figure it out for you? Some people say its just for timepass, for fun. Fun? Timepass? Aren't there better things for fun and timepass that you could do? Is your mental level so deep in the gutter that you have to rely on these quizzes for fun? And these quizzes are not like scientifically designed or anything, any dumb fucker anywhere in the world with a computer and an internet connection can write up any nonsense they feel like and call it a quiz.
And its never the people that you consider smart that you see these idiotic items from. The smart ones always have something interesting to say like the places they have been to or cool photographs or some interesting observations or events. Its always the dumb ones who you suspected were dumb right at birth are the ones doing this.

Why are we so hell bent upon patting our own backs, polishing our own behinds like red-ass baboons do to attract mates, congratulating ourselves, trying to figure out all the trivial nuances of our mediocre existence, figuring out our's and others' "personalities" as if it were black or white, figuring out "what people think of us", "do our parents love us", "which city should we be living in", "whats the ideal job for us " and that too from perfectly illegitimate sources. Why do we feel the need to have a graduation party for a 6th grade kid with evening gowns and a rented limo? Is it that hard to pass school?

You say I should just shut up and quit social networking if I have such negative feelings about normal people. But its like a Jerry Springer or a dumb reality TV show; you hate it but you just can't stop watching it. And its an easy way to keep in touch with the people you do appreciate. Maybe its a way to keep in touch with reality, to see what interests people. Maybe its a way to make you feel good about your own existence, by allowing you to deride other people's existences. Maybe I am a dumb bitch too.