It seems to be the trend these days to be cynical, jealous of anybody else’s’ success, specifically the wildly monetary types. To get a flavor of it, read up a little bit on Facebook IPO and Zuckerberg’s trashing by most of the analysts and puritans. Being a billionaire at the age of 27, does have its travails.
However I am intrigued by some bits and piece of Facebook am not in favor or against FB, however after the Instagram deal, I am a bit skeptical of the utility and not to mention longevity of web applications. I believe my relative lack of success in enchasing out of the web cash machine may also color my thoughts.
The basic premise for success of FB is the primeval emotions of humans - to boast and the opposing sentiment of prying. FB offers by far and large the most subtle and effective way to do so.
Think about it.
When you upload a photograph of you standing by the statue of liberty, you are in the most subtle way boasting “hey guys, I made it to the land of opportunity, what do you say about it”.(The statue of liberty and US is the top of the mind recall I have, but the same would work for a new car, my wedding, honeymoon, new house blah blah blah…) !!).
When I click on that photo of yours and stare at it for a couple of seconds thinking” Hey he made it big, what the heck am I doing” and then you close the window.
But the sentiment lingers.
The primeval human emotion of boasting and demonstrating dominance urges you to reciprocate.You await the opportunity consciously or sub-consciously to demonstrate the same. Hence the next time you go somewhere, buy something or do something that is a bit non-conformal, you immediately want to tell the world about it, but actually it is your way of getting even the person who has gone to post his photograph against the statue of liberty.
If you really look at the above sequence, there are two actions at dynamic play.
First is the act of boasting as a method to demonstrate superiority. And the second is the corresponding and the counter act of commenting, liking etc as a method to acknowledge your candidature for superiority.
And why do you need to demonstrate superiority?? A gentle prod to your grey cells will reveal the answer – it is for the purpose of mating, so I guess Freud was right.
Also you would observe there is a dilution in the act of sharing as a modus operand to boast which in turn is kind of aimed at demonstrating superiority.
The more I try to get even against the statue of liberty photo, the more activities I need to tell the world about. So it comes down to updating status on the go as”in a move hall “ enjoying at ABCD place with XYZ team blah blah"
So you see, deep down inside we are all the same.
Earlier we used to fight man-to-man to demonstrate superiority, now we do it on FB.
We have evolved, we have become more civilized but deep down we are all type A as or as the advertisement for some cologne goes” deep down we are all a Bit of Alpha”
But in all this gyaan you would be wondering where is the part of FB dying …… All I see is more reason for it to succeed???!!
Simply because after sometime I actually do not give a damm about you or your life, as I move on with my life, my family, my job, I really do not give a rat’s fart of what the other guy/gal is doing.
As an example, just rewind a couple of years back when you were hunting for livelihood, all you could think of where do I get placed and what is my package and the same was a topic of discussion everywhere within your social circle.
Now after two years of earning your livelihood, you really don’t care of money and where you are working. For people who switch jobs, hike over existing pay is just one reason to mentally convince themselves, for I have seen a majority of cases where people have turned down the same level of hikes offered at their existing organization.
Hence there is no real reason to boast , unless of course you want to tell the world about your kid coming first in dance class(well that is another area of thought …and another post….for another time!!)
Also FB has managed to get a bit of Google pie by creating applications and web-pages for organizations and service providers. So FB will not really die with rigor mortis, but rather end up in a coma state.
PS – I am posting the link here in FB only. So if were to lend credence to my above post, the reason for doing so would be to boast ….about my limited intellectual/literary talents…in the feeble hopes of alluring a like minded female to sit up and take notice….so there is a chance of having Coitus…. :) :) :)
Alas there are holes in all theories, and there are assumptions in all hypotheses, no statistical test is 100% accurate and the above blog entry is no exception. Sometime the primary reason to share …is to make aware......to elicit a smile…to make someone happy….with really no ulterior motive….
Well just sometimes !!!!!!!!!
