Sunday, October 07, 2007

Now that's what I call frand-sheep!

“Dude! Get on Facebook, man! Everybody’s there!” Viv got a message from his very excited friend.

It sounded like someone from the old days getting all excited about the Internet – the days when hotmail was cool, and email addresses like hotmale@hotmail.com and coolfriend4u@yahoo.com err… ‘ruled’. Viv coolly ignored it while I decided to do a little bit of exploring. After all, it was a message like this that had got me on blogger.com, and I can’t imagine my life if I had ignored that message. I still remember asking, “So like… what is this blogger thing? You just write stuff like an email? And who reads it? I mean… what’s the big deal?” Oh boy, what’s the big deal it seems.

Anyway, my inbox was also flooded with at least 16 invites to this Facebook thing. Not to mention messages like “Orkut’s so out man. Totally uncool. Facebook is the new ‘it’.” Err… o-kayyy. Thing is – I may crib about all the "hot and saxy guys wanting to make a frand shib with honest and lovely person" on Orkut, but it is a necessary evil for me as I found a lot of my friends there. For someone who had spent her childhood in seven different schools (before you think I was expelled multiple times I’d better clarify that it was because her Dad’s job entailed a lot of transfers), it was an achievement to have found everyone at one place – Orkut. I’m not that active on it, but I do find it a good one-stop-database of my friends from ye olde days. I still remember how I got started on Orkut – two of my blog friends were telling me how they were playing scrappy-scrappy on Orkut and I was curious to find out what the grown-up version of ghar-ghar and gudiya-gudiya was like. The rest, as they say, is history.

So I thought I’d give Facebook a chance and signed up. It was amazing how many more people I found – ex-colleagues, colleagues, cousins, nephews, what not, especially of the non-Indian variety. Facebook appeared to be quite non-sleazy, but then like Clueless says (and I completely agree) – give it time and everything will become sleazy. Anyway, Day 1 on Facebook felt like Day 1 in primary school. Everything was unfamiliar, and though there were people like me around, they all seemed to know their way around. So I fumbled and stumbled and finally made it. I was of course, bombarded with the millions of applications that you need to add to do anything on Facebook. And boy are they clever – they make your friends say good things about you, but you can’t read them till you add applications A to Z! Sheesh. And these applications then appear on your profile page all at once till you have to hire someone just to locate your profile picture on the page.

However, amongst all the applications that I had thrown at my face, and subsequently ignored, I found one really good one. Superpoke – throwing sheep in particular. So this application allows you to fling a virtual sheep above all the ducking heads all the way to the person you’re feeling affectionate (albeit in a strange way) towards. Now that's what I call frand-sheep! There is nothing quite like finding a friend who sat next to you in class twenty years ago, and flinging a sheep at him before saying “Hi, remember me?” I tell you - it’s the best. Of course, you can superpoke people in normal ways such as hugging them, sending them flowers or drinks, etc. but I think it's just too boring. One of my favourite actions is to especially stun the ones who're nice to me on Facebook. Someone sends you flowers or drinks – you hurl a sheep at them. Someone waves at you or hugs you, you hurl a sheep at them. It’s the most fun you can have without getting a rap from Maneka Gandhi.

Of course there are other things you can throw, such as a fish or a chicken. Oh, someone once threw a cow at me. Oh the audacity. But I can't explain to you the joy of prying yourself out from under the cow that was thrown on you, picking up a sheep and hurling it at the offender. You just have to sign up to experience it.

Of course, counting the number of outgoing sheep on my profile, anyone can tell I’m new. Usually, it's the new people on Facebook who are excitedly throwing sheep around like kids of four. I guess the more 'experienced' ones have run out of their share of sheep and are now too dignified to be hurling wolly mammals at their acquaintances.

But of course, the best things about Facebook are the alerts you get when you add someone or someone adds you – specifically the way the alerts are phrased. I cannot explain the feeling of relief-mixed-joy when you find a close friend XYZ with whom you had an ugly fallout almost a decade ago, and your Facebook page now says, “Sayesha and XYZ are now friends.” Now that is closure all right.

Now if you'll excuse me, I must get back to Facebook and throw some more sheep at people before it becomes uncool to do so.



21 comments:

PizzaDude said...

Its a GOLD!!!!

Now I am a bit curious about this whole 'Facebook' thing, especially after you are raving about it in this post and also at lunch yesterday.

kashika said...

I'll settle for Silver this time. I just have an account on Orkut n trust me everytime I decide to delete my profile, my friends who donot live in the same city as me emotionally blackmail me saying, this is the only way they can stay in contact with me. Its correct in a way, but Orkut has started annoying me lately with scraps like," hey dear. nice name. wanna be friends." The dude doesnt even know me and is calling me dear. Hypocrite!

Bivas said...

hehe...seems facebook still intrigues u :-)
my version of sheeps is the vampire application though...but then me got bored of it soon...orkut still is a better way to keep in touch, at least for me.
Remember Hi5 & Yahoo 360...all phased out but google managed to keep its brand alive...not trying to advocate any particular brand but just that am a big fan of Google. :-)

mythalez said...

=)) frand-sheep indeed !!

Sakshi said...

Heheheheh.
I think I threw the cow at you. But since then I have been a saint. [coyly looks at her nails]

Sudipta Chatterjee said...

I have, as a rule, ignored all possible invitations to add this app and that to my facebook profile. Also I don't take 'cute' ASCII arts as testimonials. Thats right --- I'm trying to be an outcast! :)

Unknown said...

what is the world coming to. facebook shasebook. throwing sheep.
naansense i say.

Sakshi said...

@TGFI - You should join. Apart from throwing sheep, we can also send drinks. And bhai can open her bar there :P

aequo animo (advocatus diaboli) said...

LOL :). one must stay on it, to get those laughs once in a while.

Somya said...

Even I like Facebook a lot...and no its not uncool ti hurl sheeps at people...I do dat all the time despite the fact its been some I have been using it...waise try using bumper stickers they are awesome...I just added and shared a few there...nice post as usual.

Sayesha said...

#Pizzadude,
Sign up sign up! Then I can hurl sheep (and pizza slices!) at you! :D

#Kashika,
I can SO understand the emotional blackmail bit! :)

#Bivas,
Hmmm... I'm sure something else will come up soon and we will all forget about the Orkuts and the Facebooks and what not! :)

#Mythalez,
Are you wanting to do frand-sheep also? :P

#Sakshi,
Saint? Ahahahaha! You and saint???
*throws a hippo at Sakshi*

#Sudipta,
Hehehehehe! You need to be whacked by a sheep or two, my friend! :)

#Ipanema Gal,
Muahahahahaha! :D

#Sakshi,
Egg-jactly! :D

#Aequo,
Yup yup! :)

#Somya,
Hehehe... my main page is so cluttered I am not adding any more apps... someone gave me a bumper sticker of a baby... sheesh. :)

Tejal said...

muahahhahahaha
if u do happen to read the comments section of a post on orkut long time back, i mentioned facebook n said some really similar things bout it. so MUAHAAHAHAHA moment for me :)

Jaya said...

Hi Sayesha, Nice Blog. Actually I am pretty happy with orkut but now after reading your post, I want to try facebook. Your earlier post on you niece was really hilarious.

JugHead said...

Call me retro but I'm neither on orkut nor on facebook so I couldnt get a dime of what you said in your post. I'll stick to blogger though!

Sayesha said...

#Tejal,
Hehehe! Every dog has his day huh? :D

#Joy,
Thanks! :)

#TinTin,
Haha! You'll get there. :)

Sudeep said...

m now damn sure tht u get a cut of the orkut n facebook profit warna itna prachar dono ke liye.. :p

i dont like all applns on facebook but love superpoke.. headbutt n karate chop karne ke liye he he

btw, check out this article which i remembered after reading ur post
http://www.indianexpress.com/sunday/story/216861.html

naya post padha nahi abhi tak so ltrz..
*karate chops Sayesha*

Just Jane said...

hahah! now this post i really enjoyed! i liked the writing also muchly :)

i'm a newbie on facebook, just a coupla days old, so was feeling like alice in wonderland the first day too, hehe! now i'm enjoying it a wee bit, but the throwing a sheep thingy i found too funny for words! i got one thrown at me, and i was like WTH?? of all things?! heheheh!

Sayesha said...

#Sudeep,
Hahaha! I will hunt you down and throw the sheep at you! :D

#Janefield,
Thanks! Doston ke muh se tareef sunne ka maza hi alag hai, nahin? :P :P
*affectionately hurls a dozen sheep at Jane*

Iday said...

Facebook is WAY better than Orkut. I dont even remember the last time i logged into Orkut.

Sayesha said...

#Iday,
And the FB-Orkut battle continues... :)

Bivas said...

came across this interesting piece of news :-)
http://www.ibnlive.com/news/microsoft-beats-google-to-facebook-deal/51132-11.html