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From Twitter to Facebook to WhatsApp to (whichever is your favorite place to hang out on the net), they make fun of it with a smugness that makes me break out in rashes. It seems people on social media only share the best moments (and the best photos, never forget the photo-sharing that is so looked down upon!), making it look as if their life is one big holiday all year round. If you ask me, it is a good thing to find people enjoying life, you can take tips from them on how to (or not to) go about it or you can just enjoy their joy from the outside in much the same way as one reading a book or watching a movie. But then nobody asked me, so I won’t go there.
Now let me see, this somehow implies that before Twitter or Facebook or WhatsApp or (whichever is your favorite place to hangout on the net) people cribbed, moaned, sobbed all year round about the sorry state of their in lives to those they met. They filled their *real life* albums (as opposed to online albums, ugh) with the worst pictures of themselves and hid those albums away, never shoving them under the noses of trapped visitors. They never went yakkety-yak about the son who got a first class or the Uncle in Amreeka or how well a dear grandchild sang and yet another danced.
What’s more, they were quite open about the uncle shut up in the asylum, the illegitimate baby the niece had, how the youngest child of a second cousin had failed all his exams and another who was on drugs and more such skeletons in the cupboard. I could go on and on, but one has to put a stop somewhere as the perfect *real* life as envisaged by its supporters is too awesome to be contained in mere words and that too written “online” by a junkie like me! Blech. Now if it were a book with real pages, and a pencil (all real and hence good, duh!), it would have been a different matter altogether.
When social media happened this imaginary real *perfect* world supposedly turned topsy-turvy. Here were millions of netizens shamelessly displaying, horror of horrors, their good, happy side to friends and strangers on the net. What a shame. This simply was not done. They were *pretending*to be happy ALL YEAR ROUND. Sacrilege! This was a slap in the face of the fans of *real* life still trying to keep the old order of things alive (or what they dreamed deemed had been the old order). And you know what’s funny? The fact that the very same people who’d sit through dozens of Bollywood potboilers without nary a whimper but never dare touch an arty film for its stark reality are among the ones crying foul of this *blatant misrepresentation of lives* on social media.
How dare those on social media, by the way addicts one and all, show only the better and the best, the happier and the happiest of themselves? In real life we never go about things this way… err, umm… well, may be, but we are not, never ever, going to admit that to you little show-offs. Changing profile pictures, sharing family outings, treks, holidays. The shame of it all, every second spent online. And don’t you dare ask what we are doing here if we hate Twitter, Facebook, yes, WhatsApp too, so much. Someone has to keep an eye on your activities and show you what imperfect beings you are. Who better than us, the jealous, envying, spying, criticizing, whining, jobless conniving perfect beings who lead our *real* lives online? Ha.
Jokes and sarcasm apart, once I happened to come across a tweet from a gentleman on Twitter who smirked that netizens only put up the best photos as profile pictures. Excuse me. I am yet to hear of someone using a *bad* picture of themselves when a best one is available, ANY-BLEDDY-WHERE, on or offline. When you do have a *best* photo WHY the hell would anyone not use it? Internet or no internet, people in general have always, but ALWAYS, shown their best side to others, figuratively and literally. So those of you who do the holier-than-thou-act so perfectly please get off your high horse and walk the *real* ground for a change. You will find that online or off, it is all the same.
©Shail Mohan 2015
Shail's Nest 
Haha thank you for saying this! I never thought of it this way. My only grouse with social media from this perspective is this. People sometimes forget that even someone who only writes about happy moments also has their share of sadness. I had a friend who was ridiculously jealous of everyone on Facebook because she believed everybody’s life was all sunshine and roses.
It is so immature to believe someone else has only rosy moments. That friend has a lot of growing up and understanding of life to do. 🙂
Pretty soon, the narcissists amongst us would be quivering with an unknown fear – of being ‘disliked’ on such platforms as Facebook!
Narcissists have feared dislike always 🙂
Even before social media and digital cameras, we only took photos of our best moments. (Legally required photos of accidents aside.) We tend to remember the best and to forget (or at least subdue the worse or the mundane memories). As you said, there’s nothing wrong in it – although we should not forget that all that looks rosy is not rosy all year round 😉
Yes. It is up to the individual to understand that. Now if individuals lack maturity they may believe the rosy picture seen. To blame social media for that is nonsense.
ha ha…love love the last but one para 😀 😀 Super Shailistic sarcastic (y)
And I agree…that’s the irony of it – ppl have been showing their best to others offline, but when displayed online, its bad.
I know many families, who for the sake of prestige and to maintain a decent face among others, go into debt and spend huge amounts on marriages and later keep struggling all their life through. They are not able to accept the reality then. All the debt for showing a good face na ?? Is this ok ??
Exactly. There are many such families who ended up paupers by trying to keep up their image in society.
I never thought of it this way ! I guess we blame the social media a lot.Instead we should be looking within and examining our own behavior. Social media they say turns you into a jealous insecure person but then you can be equally jealous of someone who walks down the street wearing beautiful clothes or in a brand new car. You don’t need FB for that !
Bingo! That’s exactly my point too 😀
I loved this post! Perfect dose of Shailism 😀
Gee, thanks M 🙂
Allow me to share this post, in case you are yet to come across it:
https://ashokbhatia.wordpress.com/2014/12/08/bertie-social-media-and-blogging-blues
Thank you for the link. I am yet to check it out. Will do so soon.
A rant to which we can all relate
Pomposity that will rival a prelate
But there are snaps
Of some mishaps
Which are posted by those who habitually hate!
Indeed! 🙂
Well said! Having said that, I don’t have a best side unfortunately. They all come out bad lol.
Lol. Oh no! 😀
Plus, there are an awful lot of not-so-best photos people put out there of themselves. Please don’t tell them I said so.
No, I won’t. 😉 Thanks for stopping by 🙂