Trivial - No More

I have, over the last one year, had the opportunity to see the impact of online persona over the actual persona. Recently, a few of my friends launched Claps and Boos, which is based on the desire of people to be socially networked online and the other big interest of most Tamizh makkal/Desis - movies. As a part of doing some spadework, I realized how much people let others know of themselves online.

I have over the last one year, hoped to maintain some form of online anonymity. I make sure my updates on Facebook is seen only by people whom I know and trust, deleted my Orkut account and of course, culled out most of the personal references from my blog as well. While people have called me anything from paranoid to being a jerk to keep most of my facebook friends on the other side of the wall (pun intended), I can only say that there is some method to the madness.

Family - Previously when I was in high school, college, there was an easier way to keep family and friends apart - but now it is beginning to get difficult. When a friend puts one number risqué comment on my wall/blog, I'm quite at a dilemma as to what to do. I hate to delete people's posts/comments as I do not believe in censorship - but, I can only imagine my mom doing a double take seeing some of the stuff that my friends seem to say/write. I have not solved this one just as yet as the only other way is to put my family on the other side of the wall - which will have serious repercussions which I do not desire. Right now, I think my family is becoming sane enough to realize what to see and what not to see. :) And recently, when Orkut Tamizh Cinema Community was hacked by a moron and was held to ransom, I realized how open/vulnerable personal information is when some idiot tries to hack you over reasons that are so stupid, that it is not worth risking your family's online information - especially when you have a substantially younger sister. Nothing is worth seeing your family pulled into the public over some stupid (non-)reasons

Work - Recently, when my company was trying to hire someone, my manager walked up to me and asked me to do some Facebook/LinkedIn research on a potential candidate he is vetting. even though I knew since 2006 that people were looking into these stuff, being asked to do that and finding some information that was really not pleasant to report to my manager has created a permanent scar on me to ever attempt a completely transparent online profile of any sort - especially Facebook which is supposed to be a completely personal application. I do maintain that I try to have a different set of actions at work - just because of the industry we work for, I cannot be as opinionated as I'm in my personal life. So, that has a great deal in this desire to be anonymous.

Friends - This is one of the prime reasons, though its been listed third; I have over the course of last few years, gotten to know some fantastic people online - with Blogeswari, Hawkeye and MeThinks topping the list, who, I would have never known if not for the internet. In fact, internet has also been responsible for me knowing RealNirmal better from the image I had of him from my college days - he had a particular nickname which was not easy to like, you see! :)  But for the past couple of years, I have been waging a battle against many of my friends' perceptions of what certain comments/blog-posts/wall posts mean. While I have completely avowed my lack of trust/interest over finding any kind of relationship online, people seem to want to give their own spin to what I say, the pictures I post etc. This is fine when it happens to be tongue in cheek comments from people I know well, but sometimes some idiots online do not know the level of liberty to take and barge in on a completely personal thread with a friend. Decidedly random acts of adding people, liking something online are given twists to bizzare, that I have stopped accepting any friend requests from people I do not know!


To summarize, I want to see whether I can doctor/cultivate my online image. I have already seen some success as some of the folks who read my blog think I'm an extreme right wing guy, while people who talk to me in person are of the decided opinion that I'm quite on the other side of the world. So far so good, lets see!

Random facts about me

I had this in my orkut profile in the about me section - but due to popular complaints that my profile had to be scrolled, I linkified it to this post.

I write short stories.
I listen to ARR the most.
I'm 184cm tall.
I hate the color of gold.
I'm romantically-challenged.
I used to be a bike freak - road stunts included.
I'm a movie freak - tamil (predominantly) and english.
Sachin was my favorite. Ponting is the current flavor and I think its gonna stay.
I have stopped seeing/following cricket after 23rd March.
I'm a tamil movie PhD.
I'd love to own the Infiniti.
I live at Tampa.
I'm a Rajni Kanth fanatic.
I love to read.
I was once very scared that I wouldn't pass my 12th standard chemistry exam.
I have weird dreams which keep repeating.
I talk 10 words a second.
I'd like to have long hair.
I still have a photo of me on bicycle taken when I was in 1st standard.
I love the Lollu sabha show!
I like Wodehouse-ian humor.
An American once thought I was chanting Voodoo when all I was doing was ask his name!
I don't like red colored automobiles.
I listen to SPB-Ilayaraja a lot.
When I was 18 years old, I had 34 teeth, but now I have 32!
I always have a fear that I'm going bald!
I know every Sherlock Holmes story - character names, plot details by heart.
I was caught by my mother reading "Laughing Gas" which I had kept inside my 10th standard science textbook, two days before my board exam.
I like Kamal, Ajit and Maddy apart from Rajni Kanth.
When I was 14, I had completed reading all the works by R.K.Narayan.
I have seen Minnale 124 times.
I'm trying to be religious and spiritual.
I've given up drinking coke/pepsi/any other aerated drink.
I like Peyton Manning. I like Tom Brady better.
I don't like Hip Hop music.
I was once chased by a dog for 4 streets when I was learning to drive a cycle.
I like to read the Sportstar.
I have a chocolate craving almost always.
I'm Sh*t scared of dogs.
I'm ruled by Inertia - of rest!
My Shoe size is 13.
I don't like coffee.
I roll at least a kilometer in my sleep every night.
I have a broken nose.
I drink a liter of starbucks coffee everyday to keep myself awake.
I see the time on my cell phone.
I like wearing a neck (crew) shirt inside every shirt I wear.
I'm addicted to music - either I listen to music or I sing, but I do the latter only when I'm alone to spare the hapless souls beside me.

(to be updated later..)

Of Orkut and Kadalais

The craze of Orkut is on a high for sometime and for some old timers like me in Orkut, its getting increasingly a sickening place. You have people who are like 40 plus (obviously males) who try to strike up inane and puerile conversation with some college going girl. They have some pretext or the other - some claim that they are on Vada poda terms with some guy who is the teeny bopper sensation at that point of time (now it is Surya - for good measure they somehow make sure they have photo with Madhavan or Surya); some others claim they are music aficionados - and this takes a fork here - some of these 'sabalist' uncles claim themselves to be 'Rahmaniacs' (gaining instant rights to write those 'asattu', 'achu pichu' comments on the scrapbooks of those girls who say 'Isn't Rahman choooo cuuuuute' kinds) while a few others claim the musical high ground - carnatic music (this gives them unlimited access to those wannabe goody two-shoes girls' scrapbooks).

Once they claim this entry into the friends list of these girls, what follows is pure, unadulterated flirting. If the things said by the 'chweeeeet' uncle was repeated by any other guy who was younger, then, there would be a huge crib-fest from that girl to all similar minded girls in her friends circle and a mass chain mail will come out, calling that poor guy (after all, flirting happens to be natural at his age) everything from a sick guy to a pervert, psycho kinds.

What I can't understand is how come an innocuous "hi! Your photos look cool!" from a 20 year old (stranger) guy is worser than a 45 plus uncle (whom the girl knows for say 3 days on orkut) saying to a girl - "You are welcome to my house anytime" at - no less - 3am! Believe me, this happens. And the funny thing is that these uncles use some bombastic GRE High Frequency word list words (sample: I wish you visualize a sweet multi sequential form of idiosyncrasy occuring benevolently in the meritorious piece of cerebral brain... - this is to say sweet dreams! And these girls immediately write a testimonial - "Uncle has awesum english knowledge and its a pleasure to have him as my friend" - My (size no 13 left) foot!

These Uncles further start some communities which anybody in their right senses won't even consider clicking on. Samples of these communities are, "Surya in Munbe Vaa Song Fans community", "Asin in 3rd scene in Ghajini fans club" {and on the other hand will start seemingly intellectual communities like "Know your english", "What Krishna means in Bhagavad Geetha", where there is mass kadalai roasting. They have equally nonsensical polls in those communities - Do you consider Jo to be the right match for Surya (poor guy, I'm having to pick up Surya's name so often!) - Uncles start these polls fully knowing that all the girls will crib about Surya marrying Jo and continue from there into scrapbooks going long and deep into a flirt-fest.

These 'Sabalaist' uncles also put some photos in their orkut album with their wives, so that anyone visiting their profile should think that they are devoted husbands - will any half-way decent husband, go to orkut, right from the moment he comes home? Won't he be expected to spend some time with his wife/family? If you venture to ask these, you will be termed a pervert by these modern magaranis (ARR/SURYA likers) or the samathu singaris (the carnatic music liker kinds).

Well, I think as long as there are misguided people around, sabalists will flirt on the scrap, every scrap.


My only comment to all this nonsense is: (quoting Premji from Chennai 600028) "Enna Kodumai saaar idhu?"


Disclaimer: This article is my opinion and not directed against any particular person. The communities mention in the post are entirely fictitious to the best of my knowledge and if there is some such community in reality, then it wasn't intentional. And for the record, I don't try to scrap/message people whom I don't know and generally won't respond to scraps from unknown people.