The other side of you

You scroll through your Facebook page. You come across things with different backgrounds and intensity levels. It’s almost as if you tend to never miss wishing people on their birthdays and anniversaries. But hey, take a pause please, would you? Ask yourself first, ‘Do I really mean what I say or am I doing it just for the sake of doing it’? Think again.

I do understand that I’m taking a risk of possibly sounding a bit pessimist and probably a little absurd as well. But I am not questioning anyone over their use of social media. All I’m simply doing is provide my opinion. Hope you have a wonderful read.

Over the years, I have witnessed a significant increase in the usage of a multitude of social media platforms. I understand they are there for us to express ourselves. But, have we not been expressing ourselves a bit more aggressively these days? We don’t seem to realize, but we have almost developed a social media persona of ourselves that differs significantly with our real-life. Just because I don’t post anything dedicated to mom and dad on mother’s and father’s day doesn’t mean I don’t care. I simply beg to differ with this bandwagon of maintaining a perfect social media image, even if reality differs far from it. One might be in a topsy-turvy relation with their parents, but just to give the world a different perspective, I have seen people write an entire page of a post dedicating everything to them. Oh! And not to miss the lovely couples. It’s indeed a nightmare for them. From posting about every single date they have been on to writing a 500-word essay wishing each other on birthdays, anniversaries, and whatnot? I wonder what would happen if you skipped mentioning one of your several anniversaries on social media? Would the world end? Would your relationship end? Think about it. Social media, as the name purports, indeed has made us more social. We get to learn new things and also entertain ourselves. But somewhere I feel we have lost our originality. We have pushed ourselves into a race, competing with every one of our ‘friends’ on whose life seems more interesting by posting catchy images, star hotels, luxury vacations and what not? Until your budget permits you, no problem. But simply getting into the race with no motives will definitely pull you back some time or the other. If you are on good savings, travel across the world on your anniversary. But how justified would it be if to travel abroad taking financial loans just so you can get a nice social media post out of it? Celebrating any events abroad surely feels good. But how about the interest rates that constantly keep knocking your purse? Forget celebrations. People post pictures at funerals along with the deceased’s body. How fair is that?

I’m not justifying things here. I’m simply stating this bemusing reality that I’ve witnessed over recent years. It’s almost as if we’ve forgotten to live our real lives driven away by this constant pressure of maintaining an ‘interesting’ social media life.

We are human beings. We are social animals. Can we not lose ourselves in this race of life by pretending to be someone else? Think about it, that’s all I ask. Cheers!

- Avjit Thapa LACM Faculty