হসন্ত-২

Let’s not idolize “show-off” as love

Once again the great “valentine’s day” is bestowed upon us. A whole new bunch of great love stories are about to begin. Lovey-dovey posts will constellate in ourhomepage. Looking into someone else’s life should be fun keeping aside the privacy part because it provides a new story. Anyhow, it doesn’t feel good after scrolling up in facebook after two-three minutes. Why? It was supposed to be fun. Dolorously, it’s all the same stories, same show-offs and same approaches. Nothing new. There’s no wrong in posting pictures with your beloved ones in social media. Let’s not get all cranky against social media. Let’s make peace with change but the question is till which limit? Change is an unending process. If we don’t stop it somewhere, it will eat up our own existence.  

There’s no denying that facebook is responsible for some great things. The world is closer and more connected and friends and family thousands of miles away are but a click away. It has highlighted global politics and made local communities tighter. However, it’s also ruining so many things under our own eyes that we’re unaware of.

Being a member of young generation, I have the golden chance to see the circus going in social media very closely. Either someone is celebrating their “one month anniversary” or posting pictures with deep thought quotes to show how much they love their partner. Everyone is busy giving updates about every single thing and making it colorful by any means. All are occupied, in uploading pictures of fancy big fat weddings with cliché and borrowed idea of posing, dress-up, makeover, event pattern or liking and fantasizing about doing it same to same. I go to restaurants, see people talking the only time when they decide what to order and that’s it. The rectangular devil kisses in their forehead and make them bow to it after that. Couples start to give check-ins with happy pictures. When the food comes, it’s obvious to take a picture of that too.  But I don’t find that joy in their face when they look at each other. I find very less people having actual conversation with each other. Even the food seems happier than the faces to me. You may ask, that’s not social media’s fault. Let me remind you one simple theory of economics. If there’s demand there will be product. No demand, no product. Social media demands your pictures, your life information. Therefore, we are producing it every day, knowing or unknowingly, booby trapping ourselves! Surprisingly, this has become a routine check. Once I was coming back from a wedding with another married couple in their car. The wife had asked his husband if he had uploaded the selfies. Getting a negative answer made her pissed. She asked- why didn’t you post it yet? I wouldn’t bother if it was just a question. It was more of a daily life question, it was kind of routine check, it was an obvious question, that’s what hit me. When did our life start spinning around social media? When did we start updating instead of living?

I do not veto the idea of social media but we know the back of the coin is too crucial in this issue. Those who are the actual user of facebook are mostly teenagers or young people. They tend to follow things rather than creating a unique mindset. Seeing this sort of examples in front of them frequently just shape their thoughts in a so-called manner where they idolize it as ideal! They are thinking this is the best way to think, express and work! They are failing to see the love our parents share, moments we gain with our siblings and most of all even if they do see they don’t know how to feel it without informing everyone about it. There are lesser girls nowadays who can think of satisfied wedding without big-budget. This should not be the situation. I, too, attend big weddings, take DSLR pictures, check-ins in restaurants. But I did not make that obvious. If you don’t get a fancy wedding, it’s fine. There’s still love there, plenty of it. If you forget to take pictures or upload it’s fine. You had good times then. If you are not giving pictures with you lover or commenting on his/her every post that’s okay too! Love doesn’t require virtual praising.

I am not against sharing your moments with your friends or families, but you need to cherish those first. Isn’t that the purpose of memory? Shouldn’t memory be like turning one page of photo album and gazing at it like your precious? Shouldn’t it be like smiling and going over the moment without looking at the caption? You need to understand, the moments we want to cherish are always there and will be there whether we post it or not. Better to live those moments and make it great. Otherwise, we will be left only with facebook posts and no memories. Even “you have a memory to look back today” notification will be unable to bring back our memories.