R.I.P Facebook

I logged into Facebook after almost a year and it looks like an airport trashcan.

Airport trashcan?

I mean too much glossy crap. Just a year back Facebook had interesting articles, intelligent view-points and emoticon riddled discussions. We had good jokes, incisive articles, useful personal updates and lots of cat videos. It used to feel like a nice relaxing dinner party with intelligent conversations.

Now it is littered with people redeeming gift coupons, store sale reward points, massage parlour offers, phone recharge discounts, travel tickets, vacation packages, movie ticket stubs… What's with this sociopathic trend of celebrating consumption?

Why are you pissed?

I thought you at least had to be a Facebook tourist to be proud of your shopping based achievements but this guy just posted a picture of his wireless modem with the caption “My new wireless modem :D :D :D :D”!

Hey, I know that guy. He did a whole photo shoot titled “My first External Hard drive :)) :)) :P :P” sometime last month. It was self-shot and he also applied an Instagram filter to make it look like 1967!

And these social readers… God, I hate them. I clicked on a webpage to get a better look at Scarlett Johansson's cleavage in the thumbnail and er… it… it might’ve been publicly shared over your wall.

That was you? How many times have I TOLD you NOT to use my Facebo…

Oh, puh-leeze! You’re worried about privacy now?

I told people it wasn't me but they never believed me. Now they probably thinks of me as a non-biodegradable plastic bottle of sleaze!

Look, I am sorry. How was I supposed to know that the default privacy setting would be set to public? Besides, thousands of people fell for the “social reading” thing, so you're not alone.

What the hell is “social reading” anyway? Since when is “reading” a social activity? Reading is something you do when you sit in peace, introspect and expand your understanding of this vast and wonderful universe in the privacy of your toilet!

Exactly. 300 curious humans clicking on a link titled, “Is Aishwarya Rai’s daughter actually a son?” on Washington Post Reader within the same two hour window is not reading, it is just mouse-clicking!

Mouse clicking – now that’s an activity that doesn’t get much credit.

Then there are apps that let people share their “activity”. NSFW videos on Dailymotion, shitty music on Spotify, "free chewing gum" coupons from Groupon... since when are all these things important enough to be shared with 600 other people? Who gives a shit if you have checked into a second hand pani-puri store on Foursquare?

Facebook realized that people willingly share only one or two articles out of every ten they read. Natural filters like “personality” and “thought” were filtering all the bullshit. But “thought” and “personality” are not good for the advertising business. So they essentially said, “Look it’s not what you like. It is about what you do.”

And what you humans do is order pizza, watch item songs and read celebrity gossip.

Yes, 90% of the time. #sigh

A Facebook profile was like having an alter-ego where everyone did their own thing. People shared their interests and hobbies. Some folks were into sports, some got all worked up about politics. A few vehemently defended their favourite tech company while others worried about endangered reptiles, stock market scams, science news, suicidal cotton farmers, art movies, and pretentious personal blogs…

Yeah, I got to know a lot about mere acquaintances and distant relatives just based on what they enthusiastically shared and friendships formed quickly on that basis.

Remember that guy who both loved celeb gossip and quantum loop-gravity and how one affected the other?

Do not judge others when you know nothing about quantum loop-gravity.

It wasn’t perfect last or anything with all the photographers and HIMs but it still was an eclectic collection of information, entertainment, knowledge, silliness, and emotion until the marketing cockroaches came along and started taking over.

The root of the problem is that Facebook became “Facebook Inc. – the publicly traded hundred billion dollar company.” Going public means that their loyalty now lies only with the stock holders, not the users. The stock market doesn’t care about the quality. The only thing it cares about is more profits every quarter.

When there is a virtual monopoly in a saturated market, the only way you can show increasing profits quarter after quarter is either by reducing costs like Walmart does, thanks to easily available slave labour all around the world, or by monetizing your users like product placements in sports, increasingly intrusive ads on Youtube, “Trending articles” on Facebook etc.

But let us not entirely blame a corporation’s quest for quarterly profits for the mess. You humans suck big time. You are the ones sharing fake inspirational stories, Satya Sai Baba blessings, photos of kidnapped children, pity posts for impoverished African kids, prayers for people with weird genetic diseases, and the worst of them all, “share if you love your immediate-family-member” statuses.

Can’t argue against that. I once saw a status that said “Share this post within 3 seconds if you really love your Mom.” Three seconds? There is a time limit for this shit now?

At least the marketing people are making some money off the shit they produce. What do they get out of sharing these things?

Twenty three likes?

Yeah. We cats may do a lot of disgusting things when you’re not looking but we never annoy fellow felines for fake attention. Only humans do it. You’re the ones who don’t think twice about annoying 80 other species if it gives you 8% off on AA batteries. You people are more than happy to trade your online identities for some extra mayonnaise on your garlic bread.

That is quite condescending coming from a species that can be tricked into chasing its own tail.

Maybe you’re just a cheap species and Facebook just made easier be “yourself”. Think about it. The creators of Facebook knew your weakness all along. You think they were giving you an account and all that space for freedom of expression for free? Bullshit, no one does that.
If you’re not paying, you’re the product being sold.

Probably. It’s same case with newspapers too. It takes about 8 rupees to publish, print and deliver a copy of Times of India. We pay only a fraction and bulk of it is paid for by advertising. Not just the Times of India, any newspaper for that matter.

The sales pitch of the newspapers is, “Look, we have a large number of uninformed readers who have an affinity for cleavage. Do you want to sell them some Axe deodorant?” The newspaper is not selling you ads. It is selling you to the advertisers!

They’re not newspapers anymore. They are advertising companies. They are all advertising companies. Facebook, Google, all the news channels, music channels, movies, sports… they’re all in the business of showing us ads. That is their primary duty. That is what drives them. Everything else they do is a by-product.

Comic books icon William Gaines and Editor Harvey Kurtzman created the MAD comic magazine which went on to become a highly-acclaimed masterpiece in American culture. Those guys had just one rule: NO GODDAMN ADS.

For decades, that policy helped them become pioneers in satirizing everything about the shallow materialist culture free from any conflict of interests with their funding sources.

I think it is time for Facebook to retire as yet another impressive subculture that got sold out because of our soul-selling, opportunistic behaviour.

Of course, after 5 decades of taking no shit from nobody, the old owners along with their values retired. MAD magazine started allowing the ads.
The ad guys always win.

Everyone else is sold out. Only crowd-sourced or subscription based outlets like EPW, NewsClick etc. have managed to inculcate and maintain standards. Maybe that is the way to go.

The way to go? You don’t even have an independent sub-culture that shows the finger to the ‘Advertising, Bollywood and Corporate power’ establishment dictating the mainstream narrative of your country and you’re dreaming of a future where Indians pay for high quality things?

I am just saying that the media and the arts need to be decentralized and democratized if there has to be any reasonable change.

I am honestly surprised you still have hope on humanity. Remember, you are the same species that inherited this beautiful planet and now you’re burning down the homes of polar-bears for insurance money! Forget about it. Now, scratch me on my head like a good boy… and below the neck too.

Make it quick, I have to step out.

Share this within 3 seconds if you really love your brother-in-law's second cousin.

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Written by Flawsophy. Edited by me. CSS styling by @apnerve

Note: This site is best viewed in a computer and in a real browser (not IE)

I call this piece "Advertising"

Do you remember Television advertisements from the 1990s? All they sold back then was Lifebuoy soap, Annapurna Atta, Tata salt, Bajaj Chetak, Meera shampoo (featuring a homely looking housewife who had trouble managing her daughter’s long mane), Parachute Coconut Oil, and Chandana Brothers sarees, “suitings and shirtings for mens!” (Yes, suitings and shirtings, that is exactly what they used to say)

I am personally embarrassed that these were the coolest things we Indians consumed back then.

Thanks to two decades of neo-liberalization during which India first shone and later grew, the nature of advertising significantly changed. Look at the prime time ads. Only things like Volkswagen cars, Luxury holiday resorts, L’Oreal products, smart phones, Reid n’ Taylor suits, credit cards, mutual funds, frozen idlis (unfortunately, they exist) and luxury paints are sold.

Cars, insurance plans, lifestyle products, housing loans and electronic gadgets. Who do you think they are selling this desi version of the American dream to? The middle class can’t afford Volkswagens and 3D TVs. The rich people probably already have them. It’s us – the upper middle class. The real product being sold is a culture of passive consumption where everything is on sale and everyone is sold out. And wow, how proudly we’re buying ourselves into it!

A Tale of two templates

It is not just the portfolio of products. The ads themselves look quite “international” if you notice. "International" in this context means that every model from that little girl in the Rasna ad to the dusky A-list Bollywood celebrity look almost Caucasian and act hyper-sexual over things like coffee, mango juice, second hand cars, bathroom tiles, cement, switch boards, new cable connection etc. If aliens are watching us through a telescope, they would think that our women have thing for plumbing and electrical outlets!

So what kind of a mind does it take to come up with ads like these? Again a lot of guesswork is involved here but I think every copywriter on his/her first day at office is taken into a dark room and is given a crash course on what I call The Copywriter's Model of the Human Brain. According to this model, the human brain has four major areas of activity:

This model dictates that the best way to sell anything is to equate it with sex. That way the guys will not complain and it is easier for the copywriters too. The feminists may rant about it on the internet but who cares about them?

In the unlikely event that they don’t want to use sex to sell, there is another strategy. I call it The Abstract Jingle. This is how a typical ad looks like:

A bunch of rural looking school boys rush towards a sandy open place in the evening. They throw their slippers in the air and run barefooted and divide themselves into teams. One boy tosses a coin to decide who bats first. A soulful jingle in Hindi plays in the background...  

The kids are completely immersed in their game invoking a nostalgic bliss of simple joys from  simpler times. A kid hits the ball and another kid takes a great catch diving to his left in slow motion. The soulful jingle continues… 

And while all this is happening, the viewer has no idea what the ad is trying to sell. This can be an ad for anything. That is the beauty of the Abstract Jingle. There is no way for the viewer to know until the last frame, what the product is. It is this suspense that keeps him hooked!

In the last frame of the ad, if one of the boys grow up to be Dhoni, it is an ad for Reebok. If the kids wear a Team India shirt, they’re promoting Nike. If they are refreshed by a sip of pure water from a nearby lake – it is either Kinley or Hero Honda or if Tendulkar appears holding a bottle of Coke... See, the Abstract Jingle is simple yet versatile and it is completely recyclable.

The Internationals and the Abstract Jingle, these are the only templates for ads there are today. I didn't complain all these days because I don’t watch TV but the same ads started streaming on Youtube and I can’t even skip them. So now, it’s personal!

Image courtesy:  http://www.polyp.org.uk/cartoons.html which has an amazing collection of editorial cartoons

P.S: Why is it that an ad always streams faster than the actual video?

A Dummy's guide to Indian Hobbies

This was published in The NRI this week. Posting here just for the record. Click on the image to read the article.

So I was wishing @flawsophy for his birthday...

Flawsophy: By the way, I have 100 published posts in flawsophy. Of course, Evil Twin has crossed 100 a long time back.

Gtoosphere: Cool. Even my blog crossed 100 sometime back. I think it should count as sort of an achievement… for holding on to a hobby that long.

Flawsophy: yeah it is.

Gtoosphere: It's a bigger achievement than birthdays :)

Flawsophy: Anything other than dying is a bigger achievement than birthdays...

Gtoosphere: That is a good standard to have. So what is the rule to wish NRIs for their birthdays? It is midnight here but it is still yesterday for you and hence not your birthday yet.

Flawsophy: :)

Gtoosphere: No... I am asking because some people are very particular about being the first to wish or wishing someone exactly at midnight. I am just wondering, what their policy for NRI birthdays would be. Do they wish them at midnight IST or midnight for the other person, whatever the time zone is?

Flawsophy: A girl would make sure there are at least three occasions... one India, one US... and one formal dinner in the evening. I was once about to wish someone dot on midnight (India time) but a Korean friend of mine came and asked for something. So I was like, six minutes late and in the meantime, another friend called and she was so mad at me for not being the first!

Gtoosphere: hehe :p

Flawsophy: ok, there may be a difference between 00:00 hours and 00:06 but for me it is 14:30 and 14:36!

Gtoosphere: yeah. What is six minutes after a heavy lunch? Pf…  

Flawsophy: adhe gaa… even different hours have different meanings… don’t they?

Gtoosphere: If you insist on being specific to the hour, then you should be wished in IST because you were born in IST.

Flawsophy: Exactly... this takes us back to reviving a dying horoscope system. That’s the only time horoscopes make sense to me

Gtoosphere: You mean a dying horoscope system adjusted for daylight saving? ;)

Flawsophy: chee chee

Gtoosphere: I am not kidding… these horoscope apps account for daylight saving as well!

Flawsophy: Horoscope has the assumption of a consistent time-zone which implies "travel across time-zone at your own risk"

Gtoosphere: ISRO launched the moon mission only after making sure it is launched at the right “muhurtham”. I mean, seriously? We're sending a vessel to the effing moon and you’re consulting a horoscope that considers the moon to be a planet?

Flawsophy: hehe... sometimes, we forget birthdays altogether. The anger over missing a birthday is something people take very seriously.

Watch this space for more adventures of Awkward Man
and his forever alone side kick, Captain Friend-zone.

Gtoosphere: I probably hold the record for forgetting the maximum number of birthdays in a year. If you forget someone’s birthday, you can’t call them anytime soon. You have to give some cool off time, maybe 3 or 4 weeks, so that the forgotten birthday doesn’t come into the next conversation.

Flawsophy: Yes, the Birthday Cool Off time.

Gtoosphere: I think an appropriate Birthday Cool Off time is 2 to 3 weeks.

Flawsophy: Two to three weeks is too much. Who remembers their birthday after a week? One week is enough.

Gtoosphere: I don’t know, I wouldn’t risk only one week of Birthday Cool Off time. I once forgot to wish someone for her birthday and she got very angry

Flawsophy: The anger over missing a birthday is something people take very personally

Gtoosphere: yeah, and when I called her a week later to apologize.. I ended up giving a very Seinfeld-esque speech on "What is the big deal with birthdays? All you did was “not die” and you want to celebrate that? Doesn't all the medical science and technological progress mean anything anymore? That we human beings as a species are collectively celebrating the miracle of ‘not dying’?" Of course, I had to apologize for the apology (which was also quite Seinfeld-esque). 

Flawsophy: hehe...

Gtoosphere: Another time, a friend invited me for lunch, so I went to her place. Her mom made awesome lunch, fried rice, payasam, etc. I had a pleasant with her chat for a couple of hours after lunch left in the evening. Two days later, I realized that it was her birthday that day, I went to her house, ate a lot of food and didn't wish her. 

Flawsophy: chee chee.. that is horrible! 

Gtoosphere: I know, but in my defense, I didn't know it was her birthday. It was the proto-Facebook era.

Flawsophy: No, there are times you can get away with that excuse. But not this time. 

Gtoosphere: So you think it is a non-bailable Birthday Offence. 

Flawsophy: yes, that is what it is -- a non-bailable Birthday Offence! You are sentenced to an invitation ban for 6 months and a fine of an expensive gift plus an apology. 

Gtoosphere: Abbo... "non-bailable birthday offence"... People these days are celebrating half-birthdays… like birthdays aren't bad enough!

 

Flawsophy: the whole concept sounds voodoo

Gtoosphere: Oh… you're turning 24 and a half today! Who gives a shit???

 

Flawsophy: hehe… I once wrote a post on birthdays and some girl commented saying that her boyfriend declared the month as a birthday month which implies a C in the high school English I exam for coming up with a ridiculous self-contradictory term.

Gtoosphere: Even worse are the couples who celebrate month-anniversaries

Flawsophy: What the hell is a month-anniversary? These people have no respect for time!

Gtoosphere: The word anniversary itself is closely related to “annual” which means once a year! The word exists because ancient Greek have arrived at a consensus that a relationship should last at least for a year before the couple can start annoying other people and here we are in the 21^st century celebrating month-anniversaries. People have no standards anymore.

Flawsophy: Yeah, people are inventing new holidays whenever they feel like smooching!

Gtoosphere: If you want an excuse to celebrate, look to traditional lifestyle. Our ancestors have invented enough reasons.

Flawsophy: yeah celebrate Maasa Siva Raatri. It is always around the corner :p

Boorelu and Pulihyaara

Gtoosphere: Bamma celebrates ‘Maargasira Lakshmivaram’ or something. How cool is that? Just like that, for four days a month, she makes Boorelu and Pulihyaara and no one complains. They didn’t even bother to give it a legitimate name. They just call it “The Thursday of so-and-so month”… Holidays can’t get more arbitrary than that!

Flawsophy: We have a whole system of made-up excuses and arbitrary holiday system thanks to India’s beautiful appetite and a fundamental hatred for work. And they don’t have oxymoronic names like half-birthdays and month-anniversaries.

Gtoosphere: hehe… that is the advantage of belonging to a 5000 year old civilization. The holidays tend to accumulate ;)

Flawsophy: Yeah, we are losing a lot of good things in a way because they are slightly inconvenient.

Gtoosphere: The beauty about our festivals is that they have more to do with our love for food and almost nothing to do with our beliefs. Did you ever pray on Sankranti? No, we just wear clothes and eat. Did you ever go to a temple on Diwali? No, we were busy drying our crackers on the terrace and test firing them. The kitchens are busier than the temples. Our festivals are broad enough to allow even atheists to enjoy them :)

Flawsophy: Yeah, shallow urban people have started wearing branded clothes for short term gains and are completely ruining a beautiful, devious, evil, and well-oiled system for excuse making and binge eating.

Gtoosphere: hehe… also, gone are the days when “Neighbours are doing Satyanarayana Vratam” is a legitimate excuse.

Flawsophy: Was that ever a legitimate excuse.

Gtoosphere: I bet someone would have used it at some time in history. It is 12:40 AM now, should I wish you now or later in the afternoon.

Flawsophy: Just wish and be done with it. Indaakati ninchi dobbuthunnav nee yankamma :p