Quite a long weekend ahead, huh?
Yeah, it’s Easter again and y’all
want to have a good time, maybe travel home, visit a park , like the
little-known Chaka Ranch or take this exciting road trip with friends to some
countryside, recover on lost sleep or mostly catch up with friends.
I bet you will receive a text
from some contact in your phone that spoke last with on New Year’s Eve. There’s
this unwritten rule that one is allowed to stay quiet most of the year as long
as they don’t forget to text during the holidays!
This reminds of days when I (and
most of my friends then) didn’t have a phone and I had this sim card that I
carried with me. I would have to wait hours late in the night to use the only
phone in our dormitory which used to be charged through very risky means.
Chance was really at play here, since the girl I was calling had to be not only
awake, but also near the available phone. Patience, that was. I actually had half
the phonebook off-head!
Then I bought my first phone, the
awesome (still is) Samsung e250i slider,
and by then there was this 2go app
that we christened ‘dark-room’ due to the crooked things that happened in the
‘rooms’. Once, I literally spent the whole night chatting some chic with a
really kinky pseudonym.
Then they introduced sms bundles and communication became
less costly. Now I could comfortably talk with virtually all my contacts
without making a call for almost a week. Keeping up conversations with in the
living room became quite a big deal with all these texts flooding my phone.
Poor mum, she couldn’t understand.
But then came the mother of all
idlers, WhatsApp, she even made it cheaper to text and now you even could tell
when they are ignoring your texts. This Easter they’ve upped their efforts of
assuring your redundancy by introducing free calls. Oh boy! Today alone, calls
I have received are double those of a week. In fact the WhatsApp status of one
of my friends reads “don’t text, I will call you” never mind that this is a
dude operates on 20mbs a day!
The love people have for free
things is astounding! So marketers and spammers took advantage of this and
quickly came up with a link which they purport once you invite at least ten
groups or contacts from a user’s phone would activate the feature in his
account. Truth is you are giving away people’s contacts to advertisers. I have
received like thirty of them this week and counting. How resending a message
activates a feature I can’t tell. But then its faith. The most circulated one
is that which promises to continue making WhatsApp free (people believe this!!)
But the most hilarious one yet is
when I received this long text where at the end there are several balls and the
promise was if I forward to twenty people the balls would start bouncing!!
My online friends.
The couple of years I have been
on social media I certainly have made intriguing ‘friends’. People I would
definitely never have met in real life and a good majority that I haven’t met yet
and a great deal who I’ll never meet beyond the precincts of my 5 inch screen.
The online ‘friend’ in reality is
an acquaintance, since it’s a verifiable fact that you don’t actually know
these people personally. You met virtually and what you interact with is a
manufactured version of them.
One friend told me he had once grabbed
the number of a girl from a mutual friend and they had these awesome
conversations on WhatsApp until they agreed to meet. Luckily, she hadn’t
photoshopped her profile pictures and neither did she have what my lecturer
calls ‘a face for radio’ but the conversation wouldn’t take off to the level of
the online chats. It was quite un-exciting and slowed-down. Funny enough they
still chat but meet up no more.
Here are a few archetypes that I
have encountered, and most definitely you have too. They map into real life
acquaintances.
The newscaster friend
He’s the tweep who incessantly
posts interesting links on a hoard of events that happen all over. You can bet
that he spends considerable amount of time on gossip sites like ghafla, and all
categories of gutter press (they prefer the label alternative media). He seldom
posts personal info but will gladly inform you about any other thing including
his immediate neighbour’s yester-night squabble. You’d want to ignore them and
sometimes you contemplate unfriending them but you don’t. Sometimes they are
useful, they give you a heads up.
The Avoid-a-friend
It’s either that ex who wants to
keep tabs on you, or that friend you pissed off in a past event and they can’t
stand being around you. But they still want to keep abreast with what you do,
so maybe, just maybe they can find a chance to get back at you. The ex wants to confirm if they ‘won’ the
break-up; if you have a new girl, a new job, new style or you post messages
targeting them.
They would rather not meet you in
real life, but they have some unfinished agenda with you, so by keeping the
online connection and employing discretion they can grill you.
The friend collector
He’s obsessed with numbers. He
will accept any friend request with relish and deliberately look for new ways
to increase his followers but still ensuring that he follows very few. Credit
be given to this friend since he takes time to post catchy and well-thought
posts to keep his followers engaged but seldom replies on the comments he gets.
He prides in being a mini-celebrity.
The friend of a friend
I like to call her the
distant-friend, more like that distant relative. She showed up on a mutual
friends list and because you wanted to increase your friend list you added
them. It’s some kind of a long-distance relationship since this friend at times
is a friend of a friend’s friend and the chain can go even farther. In the
least it’s comforting that someone on your list knows them, but in reality that
friend who ‘knows’ them might have friended them in the very same way.
Apparently, these are the best shot at making real friendship.
The frenemy
They are nice to your face,
praise you for milestones achieved and paint this illusion of good genuine
allies. They track your online footsteps, like your posts and even retweet your
witty tweets. But in reality they talk smack about you behind your back, are
envy-infested and could jump on the very next opportunity to plot your
downfall. But to do this they must keep you friends and try to impress. We all
have them.
The show off
Social media is the best thing
that ever happened in their lives. They are intrusive, change their profile
pictures a zillion times and their status updates elaborate full of
pseudo-sophisticate lingo. Instagram is home for them and are always keen to
take photos with people who matter. When
they talk to influential or well-known persons even for a minute, they will not
hesitate to let you know. Almost their whole life is laid bare on social media.
When they buy a shoe, watch, have dinner, travel or even dump someone you will
know.
The unfriend
People who you’d wish they never
sent you that friend request or made you join that WhatsApp group. They are the
moral authorities in your real life, when around them you ‘behave yourself’.
But now they joined social media and they probably have favorited you that they
receive notifications every time you post something new. That may your boss,
auntie, big sister, your lecturer, pastor or even your parent! A friend of mine
was forced to open a new account after his mum sent him friend request.
They make you feel like that
protected kid all over again. But you cannot unfriend them, or put restrictions
on their profiles, it will even make the situation worse.
The apathetic friend
He’s savvy, non-nonsense and
takes social media as seriously as his day-job. He has no time to comment on
links that you share on his timeline leave alone clicking on them. But he wants
you to comment on his updates and retweet him.
When you send him that long
inspiring or funny message on WhatsApp, he’s furious, he can’t read it. The
best he can do if he’s in a good mood is type some brief vague reply like “he-he!
Funny!” or “interesting” or just “Ha-ha!” Make the mistake of telling him to
forward it to others and he won’t reply. He believes that Instagram should be a
photographer’s exhibition point and not some selfie-archive!
The friend-in-need
He takes time to mostly click
like on your updates and some occasional brief comments so you notice him. He
retweets witty tweets from all and sundry in hope of re-follows and mentions.
All this to build a base for this business he runs and will broadly ask you to
share his links and visit his website. When he needs a certain service to get
exposure, or has a new blog, a weekend offer or an event he’s organizing even
your email won’t be spared.
Well, I will agree with you if
you have more archetypes or even better names to brand these online creatures
who keep us happy, sad, engaged and all the while online. Or for some
on-the-line … (of something).
Think you fit in any of the
above?
Better still this long weekend as
you explore that colossal dream sequence at home and rejecting those
unsolicited WhatsApp calls share that story of that rare online friend.
There is 'team mafisi' they are the chaps who only follow n befriend chiqs. Download their pics n post for other dudes after photoshoping themselves into the pics.
ReplyDeleteThere is a friend who would always post sorrowful posts n pics to get sympathy comments n likes. He went to extent of snapping his dead aunt in the coffin ready to be buried. that was the final straw I hurriedly blocked him. Which category wud he be?
ReplyDeletemy class of friends not defined here hehe. good stuff son
ReplyDeletenicely writte kijana. i must admit though i expected more friend definitions.
ReplyDeletekudos!
Great stuff...a good reminder of the 2go..chat rooms...hahaha..thumpsup wasi...aaa
ReplyDeleteTrue to tht my dad freind requested n i had to block him...good reminder of freinds buddy. Cool stuff
ReplyDeleteGood staff nigga one day you gonnabe great
ReplyDelete@sammy team_mafisi definitely missed out I think you agree it tops the list?
ReplyDeleteand Gerry, you're on point the cry_baby, there's definitely a couple of them
@Sewe, you might want to take a look at the 'apathetic' friend again
@Waruinge, thanks man... I deliberately, though left the rest for you to add atleast one you've encountered
@Sovic I bet you still remember your pseudonym...and probably you still got some of those dark room 'buddies' on your phonebook
@anonymous that must have been quite a task
@Kimathi I'm sure gonnabbe ...
thanks all guys for your feedback
good work theorist
ReplyDelete