Think of abject poverty, and you have only a cent, and you insert it into a jukebox, which spills endless heaps of coins. My situation was no different with regards to Facebook. I guess Mark Zuckerberg disliked me and kept me off the loop of friend searches. Rarely did I get any requests for friends, nor any ‘people who may know,’ pics. Just suddenly in the last week, I am flooded with dozens of requests, a few I knew for long but never knew they existed on social media and many others. My post is on these ‘many others.’
Apparently, Mark is busy, appearing before the Senate hearing committees and parliaments, explaining in vain how Facebook is not interfering with influencing voters or electing governments and above all keeping the data of the users insulated and safe. I guess he could also be busy in speedily brushing under the carpet allegations of workplace harassment, racial abuses etc. So, it’s an algorithm (whatever that means, and I use such terminologies to spruce up my posts just to make them more vibrant), which is generating the friend requests.
My name unlike like a short Alex Berry, but is a long Srinivasan Sampath Kumar, that’s only when I decide to discard my Vilanguppam and Gattam prefix as well as Tatachary and Iyengar suffixes. So, the system digs out every Srinivasan and or Sampath in their list and sends me a few thousands. Tolerable, yet it is, only until it tries the same formula on Kumar. Little that the software is aware that every other Indian is a Kumar, either in their middle name, or title, which would include odd celebrities like Dilip Kumar and the infamous Sajjan Kumar, though no requests have come from the last two as yet.
Another suspicion I have now is, if the requests have a leaning towards a particular party, as many have pictures of gods and goddesses as their profile pictures, saffron or saffron and green flag as their mast. It’s an easy guess and no prizes for that. I randomly selected a few just to liberate myself a bit and engage with persons of ‘wisdom.’ Problems arose with a few mischievous ones, I guess either masquerading in the names of women or plain aggressive when they insist for a ‘relationship’ soon after I press the ‘confirm,’ button on the friendship request.
Little they know that my wife is always around me watching and breathing on my neck! She has suggested that I should change my profile picture clicked forty years ago, but I refuse to let go my only good picture of my life, taken after years of preparation and make-up.
Please, my new friends, try not to post pictures of gods and promise me of good times in future. I’m doing my last bit of a long marathon run, panting for breath and only trying to somehow crawl to the finish line, despite the stadium being empty and the organisers long gone forgetting even if I was ever a contestant and runner.
Secondly, I use a thumbs up sign to messages, and there is no need for anyone to be courteous to reply back with another thumbs up sign as I practice courtesy of showing a thumbs up every time you post one too. Thirdly, there’s an emoji, like 1893, Edvard Munch’s ‘The Scream’ (Don’t worry, I know my limitations of intelligence and just googled it!). In Facebook, it comes with a caption wow. I use the emoji the most, which could denote my approval as well as disapproval of whatever you are posting. If I ever use it twice, it means a ‘wow wow.’ Is it synonymous with a dog’s bark? Not me, I merely bite!
Enjoy Facebook, ever responsibly like me!
Sampath Kumar
Intrépide voix
