Whassup??

Am pretty sure anyone who owns a smartphone uses whatsapp and anyone who uses whatsapp is part of at least 18 groups. Three groups each from elementary school till post graduation that has 1 all boys/girls group, 1 group with almost everyone from the class and 1 group with a subset of friends from the class. Basically enough groups to keep everyone occupied throughout the day and create confusions enough to make you forget which group you are texting in. 

Every whatsapp group follow this ritual of so called 'celebrating' someone's birthday, anniversary, wedding, promotion, new car, new mobile, new pair of slippers and what not. There's this one person in every group who remembers everyone's special day in the group and never forgets to change the group name and display picture and wishes starts pouring in from everyone in the group. Few people in the group show up only to send their wishes and abscond the next second and never comes back until it's someone else's birthday. I mean why even bother coming, you don't even get a piece of cake there. Then there's this one person who always records his wishes as a voice note, forcing others in the group to search for their earphones, though all know it's just a birthday wish and not some Airtel super singer SS01 giving an electrifying performance in the grand finale. A couple of group members from different time zones wake up to see their favorite group missing from WhatsApp only to later realize it has been temporarily rechristened. They are ones who send their wishes either too early or too late and they are the ones who don't get to see the group renamed to theirs because everything happens when they are sleeping on the other side of the earth. By the time these expats wake up and thank the group for their wishes, everyone goes to bed and forgets why they are being thanked by some random person the next day. 

It's better not to open WhatsApp during festival days because every group will have the same name and sometimes the same display picture putting us in the risk of inadvertently texting in a group we have been staying away from, for a long time. All groups become super excited about every festival and flood the groups with forward messages, images and smileys. They also become super patriotic on independence day and republic days but only on whatsapp and Facebook. 

Every group has this one person who sends out a picture that contains quotes with good morning and good night and that's everything this person sends, not just to one group but to every group the person belongs to. The one person who only forwards comical memes for everything that's trending in a day. Forgot to mention the smiley quiz and the urgent requirement for B+ve group blood being circulated ever since text messaging was invented. Then the video of MLA "Anil Upadhyay", always from the ruling party, shooting a deer, slapping a woman, thrashing a street vendor, kicking a cat, biting a dog and doing any cruel act that makes the viewer believe he indeed belongs to the ruling party and goes to the extent of creating a petition in Change.org addressed directly to the President of India, to sack the MLA who belongs to God knows which party or if he's even an MLA. Such online petitions are a topic by itself that I will reserve for another post in my blog.

Then we repeatedly see the message where a HIV infected employee from a soft drink company, most likely frooti or maaza, mixed his blood with the drink, cautioning people not to drink these bottled soft drinks for the next few days. Ever wondered, if at all this was a legit claim, how was this problem even discovered and why did the soft drink company themselves recall that particular batch of drinks off the shelves? Such messages are not going to stop people from consuming soft drinks. 

And we have this forward message that contributes 10 paise for each forward, towards the heart transplant surgery of a someone. I know it's not right to start a sentence with an 'And' but am sure people wouldn't argue about it when they think forwarding a text can really deposit 10 paise into someone's account. If that was the case, then India would be the richest country in the world earning a fortune just with forward messages. 

Compulsive Opinion Disorder

A mental health condition which needs immediate attention and addressing in this heavily connected yet sadly disconnected world of social networks. There used to be a time when people stayed away from matters that doesn't really matter to them. Before the age of smartphones, everybody's world was confined to just friends and family. People rarely paid attention to others people's opinion. A feedback or response that we provided to someone we didn't know was subtle and polite. The most common way to disagree with someone was to say nothing at all. Arguments were never intended to belittle someone or attack them personally. We cared about staying to the point and not deviating from it. I believe the main reason that kept people in their limits when it came to commenting on someone's opinion was 'identity'. Anonymous commenting rarely reached the ears of the speaker. 

How much I wish the comments section on a person's social networking profile was accessible to just a closed group of people associated with the person. That will reduce the number of threats, hatred messages, bullyings in the form of anonymous comments from random people. Imagine if one day we start hearing all the comments from social media in the actual voices of people who posted them. Am pretty sure the noise would deafen every single living being on earth and beyond. Comments have become more of a noise than a voice.

The habit of voicing out our opinion to every other social media post that comes our way is the real cause of these unwanted noise. While the fact is nobody really looks forward to our opinion, but are just posting their opinion on something they came across. A person need not agree with everyone, but that is no reason enough to personally attack the author of a content. Social media has become a breeding ground of stereotyping and hypocrisy. Something that was designed to bring hearts closer is actually making them drift far apart. Taking it easy and moving on is the need of the hour. The sooner we realize this, the better.

While we cannot expect local laws to think through every possible way to end cyberbullying and intensify punishments, what we can really do is be a responsible netizen and treat others with respect. After all behaving ourselves when no one else is watching defines the real "I".