Sheeple!

Gosh. As the weeks go by and school pressure starts to pile up, not only because the curriculum dictates so but because people are not really people but sheeple instead, there's a serious spike in stupid, whiny behaviour. Especially on Facebook. Facebook is turning really trashy by the way, but I'll address that later.

A posts the status on Facebook saying, "omg, week 9... wish i could just fuck off from smu and die... so stress" and immediately what he gets is positive reinforcement with B clicking on the thumbs up button and commenting, "yeah man, me too" or C commenting, "smu seriously sucks la". It is fundamentally:

1. One-up-manship in seeing who is most stressed out and worried about school,
2. A community built around misery.

What kind of life is that? Suddenly it just seems cool to rejoice in being so damn unapologetically bogged down by school work and grades, because honestly it's all about the social validation.


On a side note, I really criiiiiinnnnge when people comment on break-up notices.


The quality of stuff that's on Facebook is also ostensibly going downhill, and while it's nobody's fault, everybody's actions has indirectly led to this. I think the reality usually goes like this: The ratio of crap to quality of anything in life is usually an 8:2. That hasn't really been a problem in the past because most of the time the 80% of noise made out there couldn't be heard. But because Facebook puts every small thing in the limelight, the amount of nonsense suddenly just gets lots of air-time and screams in thy face. Admittedly, I used to contribute to what it is today because I did share videos that I thought were really funny, but now I think there's no point anymore.

Google has recently released a new communication platform that apparently combines its email system with an interface that resembles Facebook, called Wave. It appears to look like a huge cross between email, SMS and MSN, where integration is key.

With the advent of Blackberrys making it so easy to get and stay connected such that MSNing and SMSing are like the same thing and people can always remain online, I think we are all indeed going to be more connected quantitatively, but my guess is that there's gonna be a big list of online people with very little talking going on.

I still appreciate communicating over a mug of beer with real people very much instead.

Mid-Afternoon Drivel

I'm really quite baffled by the number of dubious-sounding URL messages being sent to me on MSN. At the rate things are going, I'm gonna get more virus URLs than actual conversation messages.

I know they're virus-related stuff and those online friends aren't deliberately throwing them my way but it's like. Dude why'd you click it in the first place? Some of the URLs are really so obvious that the best benefit of the doubt I could give is that people's muscular memories have replaced their minds.

I mean seriously, URLs like http://awesome.quickgiftz.com/ and http://iambluebird.real-cool-newyear-party-pics.com/ deserve more suspicion.



On another note, one of the most cringe-worthy things I've ever seen are comments to Facebook relationship status changes. Breakup comments are often far more distasteful, but both get-together and breakup comments are really bad.

Example.

(heartbreak image) John is no longer listed as in a relationship with Jane.
Joan: oh no what happened?! are u guys really separated?
Jenny: sigh... i really thot it wld last.
Jian: are u ok?

Who on earth in their right minds would tell you their sensitive sob story on Facebook in the glaring light of the public, especially when they've just endured one of the crappiest periods of their lives? And, personally, even more so when one has good premise to believe that every snooper on Facebook has a ravishing appetite for lapping it up for misplaced reasons?

Or maybe my opinion is the misplaced one - people actually like the attention from such a display. At any rate, I never fail to cringe internally whenever I see such comments.



On yet another note, this is an amazing 'video'. Just do as the instructions say.






Whenever you read a good book, it's like the author is right there, in the room, talking to you, which is why I don't like to read good books.
- Jack Handey

Audio Candy:
Broken Social Scene - Anthems For A 17 Year-Old Girl