Face off!

My last post, along with the responses it elicited, has gotten me thinking about communication in general, and the idea of “staying in touch” in particular.

The last decade saw the birth of a new cyber-beast – online social networking. Myspace, Orkut and most popularly, Facebook.

Facebook was a hit not only with generation Y, the 1990’s born teenagers, but also with Gen-X who were in their late twenties or early thirties, having clocked sufficient time into the working world to be disillusioned with it, and nostalgic for childhood friends and playmates. I and my peers gobbled up Facebook whole, lured by the possibility of finding out what happened to long-lost acquaintances from school. A case of the proverbial cat that got, frankly, murdered.

I too managed to find friends from way back in Kindergarten, but was surprised to see that conversations never went beyond “Helloooo!!!” and the pro-forma glossing over of 20 odd years of detail. After that, there is little else to exchange. Your long-lost friends can't think of much to say, and you are hardly inclined to respond. And so they just sit on your friends list for years, privy to your personal information, status updates (read naval gazing) and photos of you tagged by someone else in idiotic albums that you wish you could burn.

In the meanwhile, Facebook will take you on a roller-coaster ride of security breaches and leaked private info leaving you jittery and squeamish about what said breach might mean for your data.

Now, let me point you to the biggest flaw in the plan. Nostalgia has emotional value precisely because it remains nostalgia. The mind does a terrific Photoshop job of the past and lets you play over and over again in your head only the nicest times, in slow motion and soft glow lighting. Finding out that your free-spirited playmate from grade school who went on papaya raids with you ended up a dumpy wash-out with a spouse s/he hates and children s/he wishes s/he never had, really curbs your enthusiasm. I’m now nostalgic for nostalgia. It felt wonderful to miss people and wonder how they fared.

What rubs the rage in is when papaya girl posts insipid kitten pictures as her profile picture, adds idiotic status messages about a roof that leaks or worse, inanities like "Life is a flower, sniff it" and drivel like that.

You, unlike me, may not be a sensitive soul, and may not mind these grave assaults on your sensibilities, but wait until your boss wants to "friend" you on Facebook. It is likely he is a much older man, new to the various delights of the Interwebs, and unlikely to have grasped the fragile and half-formed etiquette that governs social networking realms. He will send you a friend request. You will quietly decline it. He will send you another one and follow it with two emails and a phone call asking you why you've not accepted his request. If you were raised in polite society you are hardly likely to say "Why? Here's why: my last "family emergency" involved beer and a beach in Goa, and my idiotic friends have plastered tagged pictures all over Facebook. That's why."

If you are still unfazed, remember that eventually and inevitably, your aunt Saroja whose son bought her a computer so she can chat with him on skype from Madras to Milwaukee "for freeee!" will discover Facebook too,  and that's about when you realize that the dog now bites, and must be put to sleep.

To be fair, my relationship with Facebook was also professional. In the past two years, I helped run the social media marketing function of the online retail start-up that I worked for, and learning to acquire, maintain and manage a fan base was a huge learning experience.

Dynamic interaction with your buyer group is marketing gold. If you have something to sell, especially to young people, Facebook is your best friend.

Now that I don’t work for said firm any more, have nothing to sell and would like my nostalgia left alone, it is time to kill and bury the beast.

When I announced my exit, I was flooded with inquiries of how on earth I would stay in touch. I sent a “going-of-the-radar” message to Facebook contacts I wished to keep, and wrote them my email ID so they can E-MAIL me news, like we all used to in the simple olden days.

Twitter I continue to hold, but that is because twitter allows me to follow topics, and not just people.

I am now trying to forget the awful things I've learned - like how that kid from 8th grade, a boy of sparkling wit and intellect has grown up into a sad old schmuck who changed his name to suit numerology, so his new name now has 3 vowels repeated eight times.