Greetings, fellas!
Let me just brief up, as to what I’m referring to. A week ago, that would be 24 January, 2016, I called it quits from Facebook. This demotivates, as in, majority of my blog traffic was generated via it, so I’m assuming from now on, my blog traffic is going to take a severe dip. Anyway, Facebook had been an integral part of my life. I wanted to pen down the entire journey here.
Off late, I’ve had a severe urge to write something big. I didn’t really know where to begin, so thought why not just tell your life story. My first 1,000+ article!
DISCLAIMER: High levels of narcissism and self-obsession ahead. Read it at your own risk. (Please, read it, anyway).
CHAPTER 1: The Fall Before the Rise
It all started somewhere in June 2010, when my mum made a Facebook account for me. I didn’t really know how to use it, I initially played some games, cliched games. Games having suffix ‘ville’. Yeah, life was miserable back then. (As if it’s all gold right now). I did enjoy playing them, though as everything dies, the zeal eventually rested in the grave. Then came the craze for Pool Live Tour. Fast forwarding a bit, that craze too rested in peace in due course of time. I came across some humorous pages, I thought even I could post a couple of jokes. So I messaged a page, asking them to make me an admin, I wasn’t expecting a reply, but surprisingly enough I did. That’s how I met my first Internet friend. Fast forwarding, once again, I posted cliched, mediocre, SMS forwards, via my own profile, didn’t really get much likes or response. It would be fair to say I was unpopular. I was envious of people getting 20<likes on their profile pictures while mine managed to generate a mere 2. Not saying I was a like whore, but appreciation always feels good.
CHAPTER 2: Making Internet Friends
After my first Internet friend, it took me more than a year to make a second. I came across this bloke who was an admin of a big page, he somehow accepted my friend request. On his posts, he got an average of 100 likes, which at that time seemed like an impossible amount to achieve for me. I, then added all the people liking his posts, fortunately enough, many of ’em accepted too. I got talking with ’em, and got acquainted to them. Soon enough, that’d by mid-2013, I started posting mostly original content, though every now and then I copied posts which seemed just out of this world. Come late 2013, it was 100% original content. Soon enough, people commenced plagiarizing my jokes, to which I had absolutely no hesitance. Rather it was a moment of pride. Though when I look back at those posts, it makes me cringe a lot, due to the high content of mediocrity. Nevertheless, a lame original joke is always better than an unoriginal jocular one. By early/mid-2014, I started getting some 40-50 odd likes, which was to my liking and satisfaction. Time improved and so did the quality of my Facebook posts. Mid-2015 was a time of peak, when I was considered to be an epitome of Facebook-awesomeness. My English had drastically improved, I was a jerk enough to point out errors in others’ Facebook posts. This act rightfully enough earned me the tag of ‘Grammar Nazi’, soon, enough, people started asking me whether a sentence was grammatically correct or not. It was always good to help people out.
CHAPTER 3: The Losing of Life
Since, 2015, Facebook had become a hardcore hobby for me. Ideas just flew into my mind. Not just any idea, but really humorous ideas. It was as if I could make posts at will, whenever I wanted, wherever I wanted. Though this had a slight glitch. The glitch being, I started losing my real life (This phase began in late 2014, but peaked during 2015). Life here refers to human interaction and going out. In Facebook’s defense, I was never the most outgoing of people, but things became worse. Most people whom I knew in real life used the social networking site to chat, change Dps, and added only those who they knew in real life. I certainly, had a different approach. I added and accepted Friend Requests from almost anyone who seemed genuine, after a semi-through inspection of their profile. Due to some incident, I got a huge raise in my followers, by huge, I mean 100 at one go! I got a bit greedy, and started not accepting Friend Requests. The criteria was, I’ll accept one, if we had 10<mutual friends, else welcome to my ‘people who follow you’ list! It was overwhelming to see people personal messaging me to appreciate my posts. I might have seemed a bit of a jerk, for not thanking, and simply “ignoring” those messages. It wasn’t an ‘I don’t want to talk to you’ ignore, but ‘Man, you’re embarrassing me!’ ignore. The attention I got was magnificent, but I wasn’t the most prudent of persons to deal with.
Often people relate compulsive use of Facebook with a drop of performance in academics. I did just ’bout fine in academics. Though in all honesty I could’ve done way better if I didn’t do this Facebook thingy. The problem came, whenever I used to sit for studying, a joke would hit my mind, which got me excited and made me post it. After posting, I used to sit and analyse the response which it got. That’s how I managed to slack off some precious amounts of time from my study hours. Deep inside, I knew I had to stop at some point, but I just couldn’t. At the end of September, I started hitting a rough patch. As in, I had to struggle to make a good post, which I had seen coming. I spent terrible amount of time online. Some blooming, some cliched, and some cancerous content made up my News Feed. I, however, accentuated only on the cancerous posts part, which made me wonder if a break was on the charts. I decided to take a month’s leave. It was hard at first (That’s what she said…), but I got used to it. With no competition, November 24, 2015-December 22, 2015, were the slowest 29 days, ever, in my life. It was good to be back.
CHAPTER 4: Long Term Deactivation:
I spent 33 days, that’d be from, December 22, 2015-January 24, 2016 on Facebook, until I deactivated for one final time. Today marks the one week anniversary. I, without shame had my thoughts on coming back, but I somehow restrained myself from doing so. Nowadays, I’m living in pure abstinence. No friends, no significant other, no morphine/cocaine/LSD/cigarette/any drug, no Facebook; The first three problems on that list have been prominent, well, since forever now. What hurts the most is the third one. Whenever I had a rough day, which was almost everyday, I used to turn to Facebook, so as to get my mind off, it was an anti-depressant, basically. But now, with its absence, I may be starting to feel a bit more depressed and the need for human interaction and connection. I’ve been strong enough, telling myself, I can survive without either of ’em. The deactivation is not permanent, nothing is. Just a tad long. Long can range from 4 months to a year. Depends whether I find the deactivation productive or not. The first week has been semi-productive. 7/10, you could say. Hoping to make it a 9.8 in the long run.
Internet Human welcomes thou! 