Nobody needs to know what I had for breakfast.
Consumers are eager to get a glimpse of something shallow, yet at
the same time filling and it is not just a tad, it is a plethora worth of junk
information.
YouTube users upload 48 hours of video, Facebook users share
684,478 pieces of content, Instagram users share 3,600 new photos, and Tumblr
sees 27,778 new posts published – every minute, according to a survey and
infographic by DOMO.
What is the leading cause of us requiring information to be like
coffee gulped down a programmer’s throat?
This drives us to what a human needs.
Many people out there seeks for ways where they can feel gratified
and amplified and if also possible, affirmed and made an egotist without people
realising it. Who doesn’t want to be praised and given attention? As such when
they put on a façade to attract such audience they do it well and often they
would move on to do it in the easiest way. What is the easiest way to get
people to like you? Tell jokes! Create a joke site! Contribute to a joke webpage
with image boards(without the boards). And because this requires no analysis
whatever, it does not stir the mind. It does not cause one to think. It just
fills up a void so easily you forgot, or rather you don’t know that you had a
void. Surprisingly most start without that void but after getting all these
jokes and funny picture of cats (no offence to Ben Huh and cheeseburger) you
replace the time you did a certain activity that was part of your life with
this, such that this becomes a focal point of your life. This then leads to a
point where you notice that you need to feel that void with what you’re getting
because it is the easier way out.
I mean, would you rather spend your time laughing at 9Gag or spend
half your time trying to resonate with some opinions on a forum page? Why
bother when you can be eclectic - in 5 seconds! This shows the shrewdness of
our minds, taking the better and much, much easier way out. And as it continues
to be a habit, users of the internet are finding that they would rather laugh
at a joke that was only a little funny than to analyse and figure out the
rights and wrongs and the issue of morality and justice. Such doings have been
limited to a faint amount of introverts, and much less, extroverts.
So if you ask me what the internet is currently used for? No longer
is the prime of the internet the sharing of bee hived like communities. It is
for narcissism The self-gratifying nature of humans, to be able to receive
praise in the form of Twitter retweets, Tumblr reposts, facebook likes and
Instagram hearts, and to a certain extent comments which will be perceived as
the inquiry of the user’s life which can be taken as a gesture to remain as
just a little-not-so-little-just-a-tad-between-little-and-very-little more than
acquaintances.
Recently I read the New York Times and I came across as particular
section of which I quote: “Narcissists use Twitter “as a kind of technologically
augmented megaphone, amplifying one’s own perceived superiority to others.”
Now how true is that?
Firstly, just a few words: There is nothing wrong with the wanting
of people to be concerned over
one’s little uneventful life. I mean, we all
want to make the most out of life and enjoy it, with our friends! However the
problem lies in the fact that there are people out there who have an account of
facebook or twitter not to connect with their friends, but rather because they
need to be “in” on the cool stuff. When I first created my twitter, this was
the description I had of twitter: A microblog. That simple. And to me, I define
my microblog as a blog, but in bite sizes (humans really can’t take too much
stuff at one time, huh.). Now this means that it has to be concise and that it
has to be of at least the same standard as that of what one would deem
acceptable on a blog, depending of the context.
And while there is nothing
wrong with expecting viewers and comments, the question is this: Are you doing it
because you are really eager to share your view or are you eager to receive
affirmation? The thing is, when things can be done the easy way, the meaning of
the act is normally in the tougher route. Say because you have something of
value. Not because you want to show others on Facebook that just because you’re
under a certain label in class doesn’t mean you don’t do cool stuff life eating
cheerios with chopstick(LOLjk).
Just because one does not speak, he is not a dumb person. He is just
a man who chooses his battles, chooses when to make an opinion, when to speak, when
to listen, when to comment, and when to just be there, when to give advice, and
when to offer sympathy. Most importantly, a person who knows that there is a
time for everything. Just like there was a time for Gangnam style, there is a
time for The Fox.
And really, this just goes all the back to what we started
with. Such songs make such a hit because they are dumbing down music to such a
level where if basic rhymes could do it, why bother fancifying lyrics?
Fahrenheit 451 really predicted such a coming, and it is indeed on
its way to a greater level. Will it ever stop? Only if religion occurs. Or
else, let the parlour TV tell me.
PS: Yes I know fancifying aint a word. The whole point.
PPS: This article is a result of Ray Bradbury fanboy-ness, thinking
of the world and its current state late at night, and reading a few articles on
New York Times. Hopefully, we won’t get banned for just chatting about life
with friends purely for friendship’s sake in the future.
