Emo? Everyone and always!

On Twitter, there is a ridiculous practice of accusing others of tweeting emo stuff. Emo tweets, they are called. I've been online for about eight years now and i still can't wrap my dozy head around these two words. What exactly are they? According to popular myth, these are sentences poured out by emotional/sentimental (Senti Kumars and Senti Ganeshans of the world) mostly to poetic effects. Personally, i don't approve of this definition. It's grossly misplaced for three reasons: 

• Everything you tweet—be it a lame joke or a super-intelligent statement or a political spiel—you are emotionally invested in the thoughts that go behind it. Which by all practical reasons makes your tweets emo. There's no tweet out there of yours which doesn't have a connection to you; no matter how faint that connection might be. 
• You can notice that the people who are accused of posting emo tweets are usually the ones who stay away from Twitter outrage. They are too busy doing their thing. Which is ironic because for someone to participate in something as frantic as an online outrage, certain level of emotional attachment has to be there, right? Which is also why it's safe to conclude that those who participate in Twitter fights and whatnot are the ones tweeting "emo" tweets. 
• It's your platform. You can tweet whatever the shit you like. 

Irrespective of these etymological arguments, happy tweeting!

Blah blah bullshit

I come up with unwritten rules for Twitter. Got close to 200 now but they don't mean anything. Simply put, they are crappy statements based on observations but largely meant to be funny. Besides, who am i to set rules and that too unwritten (but actually written) for others to follow? The Internet and more peculiarly, Social Media, is supposed to represent freedom. And by that, i mean everybody should be allowed to express themselves (or not) the way they prefer. It's OK to pass judgements, just like it's OK to ignore judgements. It's a matter of choice. However, i've noticed a growing legion of the so-called social media "experts" who believe they can choose for the rest of us. They attend fancy conferences and bloggers' meet and pen books. According to them, we must behave in a certain manner when we are online. They set out rules in their articles and blog posts shepherding others to toe in. The word they binge on is engagement. Apparently if we are online, we should be chatting the shit out of each other. Otherwise, it's not worth it, they say. Going by the amount of rubbish that's out there on the Web all thanks to "engaging folks", i'd pass the offer. I wrote a post four years ago and then again last year on why the concept of online engagement is banal for the most part. Of course, i was defending my right to silence (read: laziness) there. Even today, nothing has changed for me. I don't care what others tweet. I don't give a damn whether people lick their mentions as long as they don't expect me to do the same. I choose to ignore mine because i don't believe in public discourse. A conversation is meant to take place between individuals in private. It's not a circus to be enjoyed by voyeuristic strangers. The same fundamentals apply to a discussion too. The problem with online world is too many people gatecrash a conversation, thus changing it into an unchartered discussion, which ultimately morphs into a circus. I like to think of the timeline as an overcrowded elevator where you're doing alright provided you're thinking to yourself. The moment you strike a conversation with your neighbour, you're basically hijacking the peace. Which again is fine to some extent but expecting everyone to chime in would be too much to ask for. Moreover, if everybody's going to talk, who's going to listen?

Making a difference or staying indifferent?

I complete 10 months at Zomato in 10 days' time. And i've never been prouder of this company. It's one thing to be cool (which Zomato is by default, particularly on social media) but quite another to step up to a given situation. As you all know, Chennai was reeling (the conditions are comparatively better now) under intense rain last week. So what Zomato decided to do was create something called Chennai Flood Relief which encourages active participation from public. What it meant was, for every meal you buy for the affected people in Chennai, Zomato will buy one too. This was launched on the afternoon of December 2. The initial response turned out to be of mixed nature. Some people were more than happy to contribute while some were at their usual skeptical best. According to the latter, this was a gimmick by the company to grab eyeballs.

The only difference was it wasn't that.

On the contrary, it was a genuine effort to take charity to the next level. Yes, Zomato could have easily made donations to the relief funds but that wouldn't have aroused the interest or provoked awareness about what's going on in the southernmost metropolitan city of India. Besides, where do you get a meal for Rs50 nowadays? Of course, the subsidized cost we are talking about here is shouldered by Zomato for the most part. After all, it doesn't own a single restaurant and can't obviously expect the same charitable concerns from those who have agreed to cook food for the ones in need. But that's the problem with social media. People jump to conclusion because everybody wants to be the messiah who sees things through even with their eyes tight shut. However, by December 3, the response was overwhelmingly positive. The detractors were still squeaking their cynical songs but the general public at large continued to buy food packets in tens and hundreds and in some cases, thousands, for the affected souls in Chennai. Within 24 hours, on the afternoon of December 3, the donation window had to be paused. The reason was simple: the company was getting overwhelming amount of orders for Chennai. The idea was to ensure that the distribution of food packets keeps up with the orders made.

Zomato could have continued accepting orders but it didn't.

On the other hand, it scaled up on the distribution of food packets by engaging our teams in Bangalore and Chennai, Robin Hood Army volunteers, several NGOs in Chennai and Coimbatore and when things got really rough, even NDRF. But despite these measures, media picked up the misleading signals (as they usually do in our country) for the heck of it. Mint's headline did more than enough for this cause. It sounded like we weren't able to handle what we started. Instead of appreciating our integrity in not going overboard with orders, they decided to highlight something else. Think about it. Zomato could have continued to keep the donation window open but we didn't. What stopped it from milking money from the public in the name of grief/relief? I'll answer that. The word is called sincerity. When you want to make a difference, you try your level best on planning that the actions undertaken lead to desirable results. And you just do that by getting people in place and working against all kinds of obstacles.

Speaking of which, people sitting in their comfortable homes have no fucking idea how difficult things were on the ground in Chennai—if you could see it, that is. The waterlogged streets (extensive gutters?) were just one of the several problems we faced. Failing phone/data networks was another such scoundrel. The amount of frustration you feel when you aren't able to connect in order to relay crucial information is beyond words. Some kitchens that were supposed to cook food were flooded overnight, making us run around to reach out for other options. The circumstances could turn shitty within seconds (and they did in some cases) of downpour but our teams managed to keep their hopes high. They were the real heroes and are because they are STILL at work distributing thousands of food packets and other supplies. Reaching out to as many people as they can, not discriminating between anyone. Hands outstretched for food is never a pleasant sight but these are moments when you don't care much about etiquettes. I asked one of our point-of-contacts to send me pics and his reply was eye-opening: "We've got bigger issues here :) ...but we'll send whenever we can."

And they did. 

On the night of December 4, we reopened the donation window again. Moreover, this time around, we announced that Zomato didn't have the financial agility to match the meal-for-a-meal arithmetic. The public would have to do on their own, if they wish to. The cost per meal continued to remain low at Rs50 per food packet. As expected, people didn't care whether the company donated or not. Within the next three hours, 35000 meals were donated, averaging 600 every minute.

If you think, it was all rosy, you're mistaken.

Like i said, it always feels nicer to sit on a comfortable sofa and spew rubbish than get up and do some research. Something at least one journalist at Scroll would agree with. He wrote an article which is more of a theory than a story. According to him, we stopped the donation window on Dec 3rd. Mind you, stopped, not paused. To him, it was a PR stunt (What isn't a PR stunt in the big bad world of internet today? Isn't a journalist taking a byline for his article a PR stunt too?) to get people to loosen their pockets and then run away with the moolah. He didn't care to check whether the window was reopened or not and if yes, why was it closed in the first place. No. None of that. Just assuming because that's so much easier to do. I mean, i've been a journalist for 3.5 years and i've had my share of inaccurate reportage but never once did i poke my finger into a crisis that was bigger than my petty assumptions. We are talking about thousands of people stranded and foodless and whatnot. And here we're having journos lazy enough to not understand (not even try, in fact) what is going on out there. Everybody wants to be a hero nowadays. Very few want to be a part of something that might bring about a change for better. And those who actually make a difference don't care about having heavy opinion inside their skulls. They just quietly contribute and hope something good comes out of it.

If there is one thing that Chennai floods has taught me for posterity, it's the fact that there will always be more good-hearted people on this planet than the not-so-good-hearted ones. The doubting Thomases will continue to waste time while others will push the cart of humanity. That's what keeps this world spinning. Also, noble intention and great work travel far together. 

Catalysts for catalyst of change

My expertise in design is as limited as Steve Jobs' pancreas was to his longevity. I'm a copywriter. I wordplay for a living but every once in a while, i encounter situations where i get to peek into the epicness that is design. Well, design is nothing without words to describe it, isn't it? But that's for another blog post. As for now, let's concentrate on the non-verbal part. Think about it. Every little thing that you see or use or experience has something or the other to do with design. Basically, everybody is a blind slave to someone's design. You don't decide how your water-bottle is going to be shaped like. It could very well resemble Monica Bellucci's curves or flatter Kate Moss' waferness. Somebody else designed that bottle for you. The same principle applies to so many other things that we put to use in our day-to-day life. From the plates we eat from to the cars we drive in to the desk we spend our entire day on to the social networking sites we swear by—all of them owe their existence to designers. People we never get to know. They work quietly behind the scene with minimum fuss. But they shape our world. Just like an architect dreams of capturing a piece of sky with his buildings, these designers hope to influence the way we look at things (or better still, change the way we look at things!). What sets a designer apart from the rest is they can binge on originality without having to worry about repeating themselves. Let's call it the designer's touch. He'll go back to his designing board again and again and again, hoping to churn out something that reminds you of something else but not exactly. There's no such a thing as original idea and nobody knows that more succinctly than designers. They can't afford to live on the false premise of absolute creation. You can only push the wheel forward because the wheel is already invented. You can't claim to reinvent wheel either. I know this because of my association with some wonderful/promising designers like Akshar, Vivek, Nitish, Vishal, Jas, Bilal and Arpit. These guys are young and full of ideas. Out in the market, there are many more like them who appear careless but are fiddling with the very make-up on the face of our world. 

Nobody Anonymous

I choose my words carefully, especially when i'm talking to others. I might tend to lose focus while i'm ruminating/tweeting/blogging because i'm basically talking to myself but in person, i take care what comes out of my mouth. If i'm describing something, i make sure i know what i'm talking about. I don't confuse my humid with hot. If a Sunday can't be called a Monday, then an idiot shouldn't be called a fool either. Get my drift? Which is why i think the word 'celeb' is annoying when people use it in my reference. I'm not a celeb. In fact, i'm nowhere close to it. Having 28K odd followers—built over a pace of seven slow years—doesn't make you a celeb. And neither do 2500+ Facebook 'friends', a majority of whom won't show up at your funeral. Let's not even go to Instagram or Snapchat. In my dictionary, a celeb is someone who doesn't need introduction. I’ve never had been stopped on the street. Nobody knows me except the mongrels and that's just because i happen to feed them biscuits. Or else, even they wouldn't bother to wag their tails. If everything happens for a reason, a celeb is somebody who happens unreasonably. And i'm glad i'm not one of them. I am very random in my expressions, yes, but i'm not a tweleb either. Thanks, no thanks. So far, i've tried my level best to be not put in a box. Once you're inside a box, you are forced to follow patterns. That's clearly not my style. I'm a nobody and i make the most of it. 

An inadequate trial

Plagiarism is a curse on those whose work is stolen. But it's a bigger curse on those who are accused of stealing when they haven't. Especially when the topic is circumnavigating verbal ideas. Mind you, just words. Nothing has been created out of them. They are just thoughts, per se. How can one be so sure that a thought should never repeat? What exactly is an original idea? Simply because somebody thought of something before you did makes that thought patented to that person? What if somebody else had thought of it before that person did? At least that's what the fight is all about on a platform like Twitter where people wage day-long war against those who they call tweetchor. Most of these disputes revolve around jokes (yes, that's the biggest joke!). 

First thing first, it's ethically wrong to lift somebody else's ideas and pass it off as your own. It is not only a disgrace but also silly to do so in the digital age where every little thing is on record. But here's the catch: Who's going to decide who is wrong? Also, can't two people have similar thoughts? When Darwin and Wallace could have resembling theories despite working at opposite ends of the world, who are we? When Marconi and Bose could come up similar wireless magics without ever knowing each other, who are we (again)? The point being coincidental ideas happen all the time. Just that we notice them in exceptions. When people are live-tweeting on an ongoing event, timeline is filled with similar sounding tweets. Nobody is copying nobody there. It's an exhibition of how mind reacts to a given situation. But this logic is not accepted on Twitter because people love pulling others down. The self-appointed vigilante would make their case by picking someone's recent tweet and juxtapose it with random old tweets by other people. The idea here is to prove that the recent tweet is a clear case of plagiarism. Well, it could be. There's no denying but at the same time, there are greater questions to be addressed. 

What if it isn't a case of plagiarism? If so, aren't you doing a great deal of disservice to a honest person by flogging him in public? What if it is just a random thought which has no relation whatsoever to the earlier tweets? Do you give others the benefit of doubt that you so aggressively present yourself with? Do you put all your tweets under the same supervision mode that you put others? Is every single post of yours ever made so authentic that it has never been said before in the history of mankind? The greatest question being, who made you the judge? At the end of the day, it's just a bunch of words strewn together to made a sentence. That's what it is. Words. Borrowed by us from time to time. We didn't invent them. Poets did. Poets we don't give a shit about anymore. And we are talking about giving credit! 

All things said and nothing done, to each his own. Personally, i'm perfectly alright with people lifting my tweets. They do that all the time on FB and Whatsapp anyway. One guy even had the audacity to mail me to inform that he has been "referring" to my blog posts to keep his blog alive. He was doing much more than referring. I choose to ignore because i don't have the energy or patience to fight a worthless battle. Forget words, i've come across Instagram accounts where i've seen pictures clicked by me. Since i have no fear of bagging the Nobel or Pulitzer anytime soon, i take it as a compliment. 

Online or offline, one's conscience should be unblemished no matter what. I remember when i joined Twitter, i used to not only send "Hello there!" to the likes of Obama but also blatantly lift Internet lines for my tweets. Fortunately, i came to my sense soon (2010) and decided to stick to my lame stuff. Interestingly enough, that's also when my following spiked! People actually admire honest lame stuff. Yes, they do!

I posted this recently as a rebuttal to those who claim that my tweets blindly cross 1K. They don't. 20-30 is my average thanks to the negative publicity that rampantly goes on due to my self-imposed silence.

But something very intriguing happened immediately. An old tweet of mine suddenly crossed 1K, becoming my first tweet ever to do so. 

And this tweet is plagiarized on a daily basis. It's tweeted every single day without fail with no credit showered whatsoever. No joke, this has been happening for months now. So, who is to be blamed here? This is why i believe that plagiarism is a conscious act with subconscious repercussions. There's no point in creating a ruckus. If a person steals, he'll acknowledge his unjust act someday or the other. But if a person is accused of stealing something he hasn't, then that realization becomes the vigilante's burden. Hence it's better to maintain silence and overlook acts of verbal transgression. Attention is the biggest commodity nowadays and if you are giving it to conducting a trial where your expertise is limited to Twitter search bar, then you are basically fooling yourself. There is a world beyond Twitter. And more importantly, there is a world beyond the English language. Not all thoughts are thought only in English. Do you cross-check in every single language out there? 

Tweet-ups and lows

There are many things i haven't done since 2010. Swimming 10 laps a day. Cycling 6km (to and fro office). Playing weekly football with adequate training and warmups. Turning vegetarian. Donating monthly to Wikipedia and Greenpeace. And on the online front, i haven't engaged in public conversations in over five years now. Similarly, i haven't been to tweetups either (more on that later). But i've gone to meet Twitter friends who duped me with their 'surprise' of calling fellow tweeps without asking me first. But i must admit i do miss indulging in timeline convos, especially when people take silence for granted and misuse it against you. I've attended the funerals of so many brilliant comebacks inside my head since '10 that it's not funny although the comebacks were. I've somehow managed to resist myself for so long now that it doesn't really matter. When you're silent, you see the clearer picture. You witness otherwise normal folks resorting to misinformation and blatant lies just because they know you're not going to clarify anything anyway. 

I stopped attending tweetup for following reasons: 

1. Tweeps who came across as aggressive (read: abusive) on the timeline were actually fuddus of the pitiable type. They just imagined themselves as Hulk while typing. In reality, they had a slouch and their elbows were almost at 90 degrees thanks to their phone in the middle.
2. Women with their photoshopped DPs and feministic fringes were generally the least admirable aspect of a tweetup. No, it had very little to do with the fact that they appeared far from attractive thanks to hitherto hidden obesity. All of a sudden, you thanked technology for keeping the DPs' mouths shut!
3. On the other hand, i found guys to be far more wonderful and engaging. There was no pretense in their persona. They were exactly the way they presented themselves on the timeline. I felt odd with them though because i never felt cool enough. 
4. Unlike on the timeline, there was no tweet-up fight ever happening. Twitter fights let you know who stood with whom and the overall equation between two conflicting ideologies. At a tweetup, nothing of that sort happened. Just forced conversations, no debate.
5. If a tweep was 120% entertaining on the timeline, his entertainment quotient dropped to 23% in a tweetup. Can't blame him/her because it's difficult to manage in the real world without the help of hashtags and trending topics. 
6. After a point, everybody was just seeking an excuse to leave the tweetup ASAP. Just that they didn't want to be the first one so they are waiting for somebody to make the grand move. (For the record, i used to shamelessly do the honour every single time!)
7. Bitching and gossiping were common features of tweetups. And that was irrespective of gender. 
8. Everybody exchanged number but nobody contacted nobody later. Or maybe it was just me.
9. Mouths opened wide and tongue rolled out as pink carpet when you told them you don't drink or smoke.
10. None of the tweetups ever end up in an orgy. 

I'm pretty sure (or at least i hope) things must have changed a lot since 2010. 

Trigger-angry

It's the age of overreaction. The worst part is there's no distinction between the online and the offline worlds anymore. 

Online sample: 

BBC India's Twitter account goofs up on a tweet and takes its own sweet time to rectify the error. In the meanwhile, outrage takes over. Politeness is kicked out of the window as harsh words are employed. Speaking of which, one tweep goes to the extent of demanding the firing of the one responsible the tweet.

There are several questions worth pondering over here: 

• Do you apply the same sets of standards at your job too?
• What if somebody takes you more seriously than needed?
• Do you know the track record of the person who posted that tweet?
• When exactly did you become more righteous?

Offline sample: 

A girl found a bug in the poha served as breakfast in office. She cautioned her colleagues against eating it. To pick up the tempo, the HR decided to annul the vendor's contract solely because of this incident. The track record of the caterer wasn't even considered. There were no explanations demanded nor made. 

There are several questions worth pondering over here too:

• How can you be so sure that the bug is from the kitchen, not office?
• Why wasn't the girl's misfortune taken into question?
• Given she's a non-vegetarian, she might want the worm processed through chicken?
• I don't like jeera but have i ever made a fuss about it? I segregate them and move on.

Where opinions come and go

Since everybody has an opinion nowadays, we've arrived at a stage where we really don't know how to draw a line. One can clearly see this change exposing itself on the online world. If somebody doesn't agree with somebody else's thought process, that somebody becomes this somebody's enemy. Just because their opinions didn't match! The fact that their underwear matched on that day doesn't count. Perhaps this is what happens when we are overflooded with data—most of it unverified. Everybody begins to form a thought school of their own, each building on the legend that they know everything about everything. In such a scenario, rigidity of discussion grows ultimately leading to poverty of intelligence. After a point, arrogance in one's knowledge sinks so deep that there's no space left for philosophical intervention. To make matters pitiable, words like overrated and underrated is used to express a point. 

Wait a minute. 

Who is rating whom? 

Let me take a guess. 

You? Oh yes. 

You are the one who is rating based on your own experiences and you wholeheartedly expect even Standard & Poor's to oblige your expertise. 

The topics of debate don't even have to be about black hole or how Angelina Jolie manages to look hot despite doing whatever she did to her boobs. It could be a plain vanilla chat about how somebody's tweet is stupid or jokes, lame. 

Big deal. 

Needless to add, when such a conversation takes place in the offline world, the dynamics are quite different. 

Offline world scenario: 

A: *smiling like a shy chimp*

B, C, D and E: "Your haircut doesn't look good, man."

A: "OK."

Just pull back for a second and see what happened above. A seemed OK with his haircut. Chances are he liked it a lot. Maybe he's having an affair with the barber. We'll never know. But the point is he was OK with his haircut. BCDE group felt otherwise and expressed their opinion. For some reason, they felt it was their duty to let A know what they thought and more bizarrely, that they thought that their thought mattered. For a few seconds, they made A realize that his haircut was the second biggest mistake of his life. Not that BCDE's opinion would make things better either for themselves or him but still, opinion has a way with people. An opinion is like those streakers who expose themselves hoping somebody will notice them. 

However, let's not neglect several points: 

a. A wanted that haircut hence had it. Just like they wanted to be opinionated. 

b. BCDE felt they knew better, not because they actually did but they just felt like that.

c. A could have easily given rise to a conversation which wouldn't have ended with OK.

d. His biggest mistake continues to be his absence on Facebook, where everybody likes everything. 

Explain and simple

People love calling me tweleb (Twitter celeb) although i don’t see why. It’s neatly OK but still, if you sit down to analyze all the cogs in place, you’ll learn how hype operates so effectively on social media. There are so many embarrassing instances of ignorance that tweleb would start sounding like an insult (if it ain’t already) to you.

So.

To begin with, numbers define our position, right? How much do you earn? How many years of experience? How long is your penis? How long can you fuck? How long before you retire in Shimoga? How many hairs left on your pate? How many followers do you have? Apparently, having more than 20K+ followers (when human population recently crossed 7.2 billion) is a big deal. A lame tweet getting 15 RTs—which happens to be my average—is supposed to be celebratory. A heavily-posed DP receiving 200+ likes on Facebook makes you revel while a dipped-in-fancy-filters images garnering 50 hearts is supposed to be a sign of fame.

Bullshit.

We don’t even know what popularity is.

Tip of iceberg, huh? Big deal?

Staph.

It’s not.

What truly seems to be happening is we as individuals have lowered our expectations to such a level that we crave validation from absolute strangers. Who are these people? Will you ever be able to connect with them? Is there any scope for building a relationship that lasts longer than a trend on Twitter? And speaking of validation, what if every single person who comes across your tweets agrees with you? What next? What will you do? Consider yourself a celebrity just because your thoughts (read: jokes) are being celebrated?

I don’t think that’d be appropriate.

An advisable move would be to just keep doing what you like doing without worrying who’s noticing and who isn’t. That should suffice. I’m saying this not because i’ve worked towards creating a space for myself where i don’t stand accountable for what i share online. I write and i disappear. End of discussion. But at the same time, i appreciate the time the aforementioned ‘absolute strangers’ took to pay attention. But engaging them in an exhibitive and trivial conversation would be stretching it too far.

Sounds fair? No.

OK.

I also acknowledge that people have a short attention span. They might applaud you or troll you mercilessly for one goof-up of a one-liner but they are not permanent. And neither are you. Both your admirers as well as your detractors will forget you if you don’t log in for 2 weeks.

Trust me on this.

It has happened to a lot, especially those who thought that the timeline would scroll in the opposite direction if they deactivate their account.

Were these handles twelebs? Some of them, yes.
Did that change anything? Nope.

Instachat

After months (if not years) of claiming that i'll never join Instagram, i not only joined it but also made myself home on Snapchat. And i am addicted like never before. I don't own a DSLR nor am a photograper par excellence but i see things like Haley Joel Osment did in The Sixth Sense. Just kidding! It's a pity he couldn't see his career fading away within a decade. Anyway, it's fun to post random pictures with one-word caption (on Instagram) and lame images with quirky lines (on Snapchat) every once in a while all the fucking time. And that's where the problemo lies. I remember posting not less than 100 tweets on Twitter a day when i initially joined Twittersphere. That figure has come down to 10 in less than seven years. I don't care much about my timeline, let alone my mentions. On the other contrary, it's cute how my attention span has spiked over the past two days thanks to extensive activities on the aforementioned sites. Let's wait and not watch how long this phase continues.

Figure this!

There are more than seven billion human beings on this ever-evolving planet. Out of which, about 40% are Internet users. That translates to 2.8 billion people who have unlimited access to food and water...err..Internet. However, in India, online penetration is as low as 13%. Which means, less than 160 million Indians can afford to spend their time browsing. There are around 1.23 billion humans in India and for every Internet user in the country, there are five in China. A lot of these users are very active on social media. Now, if you break down the global population into Twitter consumption alone, there are more than 500 million active tweeps who are either learning or know how to limit their thoughts to 140 characters or less. 20 million (or so) of them are from India. A majority belongs to the metropolitan areas followed by Tier-2 cities. This section is basically fluent in English and takes as much pride in their selfies as their grammatical errors. It's a commune with no boundaries. And in the grand scheme of things (and ballpark estimations), even if your tweet manages to earn 500 RTs from them, it means nothing in comparison to the aforementioned figures. Regardless of your followers count, your life still sucks.

Twitter's 96 Unwritten Rules

I've been on Twitter for more than four years now. My DP is as old as my twi-life. That's not a long time but it's long enough to let you know that you're basically a lazy narcissist who doesn't give a damn about social etiquette (read: vain conversations). Anyway, over the years, i've written some unwritten rules every now and then. Ironically enough. I don't follow them nor do i expect others to. About two years ago, i did a small study on the first three rules but as time passed by, i grew wiser and gave up. However, it's interesting to see how trends change and we try to make our virtual world as interesting as it can get while our real one begs upgradation. Below you'll find 96 such rules which are best left unread. [In case you're wondering why 96 and not 99 or 100, that's because it's 96 and not 99 or 100.]

Twitter's Unwritten Rule #1: When you don't have anything to say, say. 

Twitter's Unwritten Rule #2: Don't keep your crap to yourself. Your timeline is dying to *no*. 

Twitter's Unwritten Rule #3: Feel busier than you really are.

Twitter's Unwritten Rule #4: In case you run out of rubbish to share, twitpic.

Twitter's Unwritten Rule #5: Type whatever you want to say. No one's paying attention anyway. 

Twitter's Unwritten Rule #6: Don't shelve your worthless one-bit thoughts. Tweet.

Twitter's unwritten Rule #7: Remind us who we were lest we forget.

Twitter’s Unwritten Rule #8: Stay illusioned. After all, you are a tweep.

Twitter’s Unwritten Rule #9: Typos shall love you more than you hate them.

Twitter’s Unwritten Rule #10: Learn a lot about tweeps by meeting them. But a lot more by not ACTUALLY meeting them.

Twitter's Unwritten Rule #11: However unbearable the bullshit, whatever be the consequences, remember just one thing—it's OK.  

Twitter’s Unwritten Rule #12: Apologize as soon as you realize that you’re making sense. 
Twitter’s Unwritten Rule #13: Twitter ain't for spreading hatred. It's for making us feel better about our sorry life. 
Twitter’s Unwritten Rule #14: Karma will unleash typos to wreck your poor jokes.

Twitter's Unwritten Rule #15: Every second person on the timeline is an amateur photographer.

Twitter's Unwritten Rule #16: Be. See. Flee.

Twitter's Unwritten Rule #17: You don't need fodder for news. The news is you.

Twitter's Unwritten Rule #18: Follow interesting tweets, not tweeps.

Twitter's Unwritten Rule #19: If you're paying close attention to my crap, then yes, we are friends forever. 
Twitter's Unwritten Rule #20: Don't approve of whatever you tweet before and after lunch.

Twitter's Unwritten Rule #21: Twitter shall make you feel busier than you really are.

Twitter's Unwritten Rule #22: If someone unfollows you, be glad. At least someone took your crap seriously.

Twitter's Unwritten Rule #23: You're an addict when you misplace something and look all over the timeline for it.

Twitter's Unwritten Rule #24: A thought ain't aware what fucking downhill is all about until it turns into a lousy tweet.

Twitter's Unwritten Rule #25: Referring to oneself in the third person = Referring to oneself in the first person 
Twitter's Unwritten Rule #26: Anything that begins with 'Dear...' is going to end with a not-so-endearing comment.

Twitter's Unwritten Rule #27: Log in just like you piss i.e. whenever you ought to.

Twitter's Unwritten Rule #28: Judge other tweeps but keep your judgements to yourself.

Twitter's Unwritten Rule #29: Stay emotionally damaged but be physically available on the timeline.

Twitter's Unwritten Rule #30: Go conquer the world. Meanwhile, let the timeline know how much your life sucks.

Twitter's Unwritten Rule #31: Wisecracks aren't signs of wisdom as they are peculiar signs of, well, horrible wisecracks. 
Twitter's Unwritten Rule #32: If reading others' merry tweets makes you happy, your innocence deserves much more happiness than that.

Twitter's Unwritten Rule #33: Be as interesting as your retweets.

Twitter's Unwritten Rule #34: No matter how many times one rewrites a bad joke, it remains just another bad joke.

Twitter's Unwritten Rule #35: Spending too much time on the timeline is not only unhealthy but also unhealthy.

Twitter's Unwritten Rule #36: Whatever.

Twitter's Unwritten Rule #37: Anything on the timeline that begins with "Sometimes..." should be neglected. Any given time.

Twitter's Unwritten Rule #38: You're more than just disoriented when instead of committing a typo, you miss the entire freaking word.

Twitter's Unwritten Rule #39: It's impossible to forget a good tweet even if you can't recollect the tweep who posted it.

Twitter's Unwritten Rule #40: We shall never run out of hypocritical nonsense.

Twitter's Unwritten Rule #41: Timeline is a conversation bait at its worst.

Twitter's Unwritten Rule #42: If you are here to prove something, you're demolishing the sole purpose.

Twitter's Unwritten Rule #43: Trolls may not like you but they're the ones who genuinely pay heed to your virtual existence.  

Twitter's Unwritten Rule #44: If your tweets are irritating a particular set of crowd, you must be doing something right.

Twitter's Unwritten Rule #45: Never ask tweeps whether they're employed or what they do for a living.

Twitter's Unwritten Rule #46: Be your fake self.

Twitter's Unwritten Rule #47: For every earthquaky action, there is an exaggerated timeline reaction.

Twitter's Unwritten Rule #48: Every little thing takes place for the sake of a tweet.

Twitter's Unwritten Rule #49: Thou shalt commit silly typos. 
Twitter's Unwritten Rule #50: Whenever you commit a typo, they'll laugh...and then wait for you to correct it.

Twitter's Unwritten Rule #51: More or less, all opinions expressed on the timeline are of negligible value.

Twitter's Unwritten Rule #52: Everybody on the timeline sound like each other i.e. somebody they are not.

Twitter's Unwritten Rule #53: A majority of the folks here are sex joke offenders.

Twitter's Unwritten Rule #54: All tweeps are contemporary writers.

Twitter's Unwritten Rule #55: Together we can and we will make a grievance.

Twitter's Unwritten Rule #56: The hashtag #OKIamgoing always sounds funnier than whatever precedes it. 
Twitter's Unwritten Rule #57: We won't leave Twitter abusing the lame old excuse saying THAT would make us quitters.

Twitter's Unwritten Rule #58: Sentimental tweets and timeline are made for each other.

Twitter's Unwritten Rule #59: Tweeps can't afford to be poor.

Twitter's Unwritten Rule #60: Everybody is entitled to everybody's opinion.

Twitter's Unwritten Rule #61: If you've got absolutely no idea what you're doing on the timeline, you're acing it.

Twitter's Unwritten Rule #62: Each one of us have a unique image here. It's called DP. 
Twitter's Unwritten Rule #63: To each his pwn.

Twitter's Unwritten Rule #64: If you're plagiarizing a tweet, make sure you end it with #rerun. You might at least get the benefit of doubt. 
Twitter's Unwritten Rule #65: We are only as insomniac as our timeline.

Twitter's Unwritten Rule #66: Quit pretending that you're the last savior of Queen's English. It doesn't owe you anything and vice versa.  
Twitter's Unwritten Rule #67: The honestest compliment one can ever get here is a o_O. 

Twitter's Unwritten Rule #68: The logout button is the only thing worth taking seriously here. 
Twitter's Unwritten Rule #69: The timeline will ALWAYS appear happier than you.

Twitter's Unwritten Rule #70: Tweeps never lose an opportunity to add RIP before famous names. 
Twitter's Unwritten Rule #71: If you fail to laugh at your timeline, you're an idiot.  
Twitter's Unwritten Rule #72: Avoid meeting fellow-tweeps. They seem better in their tweets.

Twitter's Unwritten Rule #73: Impressing your old followers is always going to be one heck of a task. 
Twitter's Unwritten Rule #74: Keeping up with the tradition, Twitter's Unwritten Rule #75 is going to suck even more.  
Twitter's Unwritten Rule #75: Kabhi kisi ko mukammal jahaan nahi milta; kahi retweet toh kahi star nahi milta.  
Twitter's Unwritten Rule #76: For a majority of us, tweeting is the closest we'll ever get to social service.  
Twitter's Unwritten Rule #77: As long as you can tip, it doesn't matter whether you are a pro or not.  
Twitter's Unwritten Rule #78: Your tweets are supposed to be good enough only for YOU and no one else. 
 Twitter's Unwritten Rule #79: Almost every second thing that happens is twitpic-worthy.  
Twitter's Unwritten Rule #80: If you haven't been abused by random tweeps yet, you are doing EVERYTHING wrong.  
Twitter's Unwritten Rule #81: You've arrived for real when somebody gets your tweet tattooed on their ass.
Twitter's Unwritten Rule #82: If you can't tweet well, diss well.  
Twitter's Unwritten Rule #83: For every action, there's an equal and opposite hashtag reaction.
 Twitter's Unwritten Rule #84: Be the outrage you want to see in the world.  
Twitter's Unwritten Rule #85: Time is divided into BO (Before Outrage) and AO (After Outrage) 
Twitter's Unwritten Rule #86: We never grow tired of entertaining each other for free. 
Twitter's Unwritten Rule #87: Be appreciative of the crap you read here because time and energy has been spent on it.  
Twitter's Unwritten Rule #88: Bring thinking back. 
Twitter's Unwritten Rule #89: If you can't say it here, those words shall most probably die with you. 
Twitter's Unwritten Rule #90: Think twice before posting one-liners. 
Twitter's Unwritten Rule #91: We're never going to be as awesome as our tweets. 
Twitter's Unwritten Rule #92: It's not a twi-fight if it doesn't involve blood.

Twitter's Unwritten Rule #93: Don't generalize. 
Twitter's Unwritten Rule #94: Never act as if you've got a life by saying stuff like "I've got a life".

Twitter's Unwritten Rule #95: There was a lousy comedian in you that needed internet to come out.

Twitter's Unwritten Rule #96: We tweet best when we've got absolutely nothing to tweet.
 

The right to remain silent

I don't converse much for two reasons.
1. I'm not good at it. 
2. I don't want to be good at it.

Much against this distressing dilemma, i often get asked on Twitter why i don't reply to mentions. Keeping up with their expectations, i don't answer that question. Besides, i commit enough typos while typing my lame tweets that i’d rather not wish to increase my errata count. Or maybe i'm one of those who let others have the last word by not replying in the first place. And if at all i were to say something that could come close to explaining my stubbornness, i'd preferably not say it. I’m not accountable for my tweets. They are Grade A rubbish in any case. Similarly, it's a choice to stay away from timeline conversations. Not that i find these wit-induced gabs boring but then i don't find them overwhelmingly enticing either. Some talks make you giggle whereas some make you cringe. Both are OK as long as nobody is pointing a missile at your crotch and forcing you to read. For the record, i'm yet to witness an insightful chat taking place between two tweeps. People arrive with certain mindsets and log out with the same. Absolutely nothing changes. And they repeat the procedure tomorrow as well. This isn't my theory because we know this for certain. A majority of us converse on social media for the sole sake of marking our attendance in the virtual world. Practically speaking, we haven’t graduated much from Orkut even though we won’t admit it. Of course, there's nothing wrong with it as this attitude pretty much serves the whole purpose of garnering attention—not to forget, validation—we otherwise lack in our real world. But the ultimate gospel states that tweeps are merely killing time.
       However, coming back to my self-imposed silence, i used to be part of this circus till circa 2010 before i stopped participating in the celebrated verbal-diarrhea-fest. Just like that. Of course, i pay for my heresy by getting constantly bombarded for being a mute. I also lost the followership of some brilliant tweeps who thought i was an outcast now. After all, people from media can't afford to be isolated but I'm doing fine. I'm neither a huge fan of letting others know what kind of shitty tabloid articles i write for a living nor a huge critic of digital networking so my chosen technique works for me. Anyway, i don't know what I'm doing but i fortunately know what I'm not. I don't respond while i continue to listen to the never-to-be-addressed grievances. So those who think I'm not a good listener, you're mistaken. Despite hectic schedule (yeah, there are folks out there with high-demand-low-paying jobs), i check my mentions every now and then. Got to admit that very few tweets make me laugh harder. In my defense, at least i don't discriminate when it comes to replying mentions. Unlike most of the tweeps who bother to talk to only those whose intellect and follower count matter. To me, all are equally important as well as unimportant. No wonder i haven’t blocked even the worst of trolls yet. Moreover, my responding to their mentions won't change a thing. We were and we shall remain miserable, no matter what. Lastly, to answer your question why i don't use my reply button: Well, because i can.

Restrain order

One month ago, I realized that I must quit pretending that I can write. Just like four years ago, I acknowledged the painful death of a murmuring poet in me. Of course, I am being dramatic since that didn't stop me from spewing horribly bad poems later. But this is another story altogether. Anyway, what I'm trying to emphasize here is the urgency to learn something and work on it. I discovered that I'm not attuned enough to take writing seriously. Which is why I'm not a published writer yet. Or better still, I don't post pieces on my blog regularly (if posting four articles a month is regular) like I once used to. It has indeed relieved me of a burden to impress myself considering the fact that I don't play to an empty gallery. Unlike on Twitter. There is an ample crowd of vellas there who bother to pay attention—not to mention react—to your crap. Speaking of which, I'm restraining myself from spending too much time on the timeline either. Fortunately, I'm successfully overcoming the urge to share pseudo-wisdom in less than 140 characters. Yes, there was an era when I used to post one-liner after one-liner on random topics. Sometimes even on topics that don't care to exist. Besides, penning mindless one-liners is way too easier than drafting lengthy sensible paragraphs! Having said that, I'm just 35 km away from attaining virtual nirvana. And I've got to tweet this thought that's jogging in my head after publishing this whatever y'all just read.

the Bucket List stops here

Everyone has a Bucket List. No, not the DVD of that senior citizen movie (nor the torrent considering how deep we’ve dived into the Somalia-less ocean of internet piracy). I mean the real deal. We may not jot down on a paper or notepad lest someone accuses us of being pedantic but it’s always hovering in the backyard of our empty mind. These are those stuff that you wish to accomplish before you go back to hell and brag in front of His Evilness Devil himself. The list could include anything from watching Elvis perform live (he ain't dead) to visiting El Dorado (yeah, it exists) to tapping a Playboy model (die, Hefner, die). Ahem. I got carried away there. Regardless, Bucket List is a must-have, especially when you are sure that you are not immortal.

A Bucket List is very similar to the one we prepare at the very beginning of the year. Like every January, we invent this huge list of to-dos which we resolve never to do. On the contrary, they do us. Likewise, there ought to be a list that addresses the disappointments and the apparent adaptations-cum-modifications required to fill the vacuum of a lifetime. In fact, the only difference between Bucket List and New Year Resolutions is there isn't a movie titled on the latter YET!

Just to give a peek into how a Bucket List should NOT look like. Here's mine. It is a bit haphazard, to say the least; but honest, to say the most. Just lying.

Bucket List #01:-Tame the Fail Whale and then take it for a long ride.

Bucket List #02:- Reach the top of Mt. Everest and burp loudly.

Bucket List #03:- Conserve Tulu-speaking tigers (whatever that means).

Bucket List #04:- Find a heart that's made of glass. And break it.

Bucket List #05:- Unlearn to sing in my crowf-ed voice.

Bucket List #06:- Rewrite (in)human history.

Bucket List #07:- Check into Hotel California and then leave.

Bucket List #08:- Fluently talk like Marlon Brando in Godfather sans the toilet paper.

Bucket List #09:- Pen a script on Orwell’s life and persuade Sean Penn to take the leading role as well produce the movie.

Bucket List #10:- Get laid.

Bucket List #11:- Bag a Nobel Prize for letting others win Booker, Pulitzer and whatnot.

Bucket List #12:- Quit passive smoking.

Bucket List #13:- Write a song in favour of arranged marriages just for the heck of it.

Bucket List #14:- Fcuk off for real.

Bucket List #15:- Die on the last Sunday of my life.

Bucket List #16:- Learn break dancing to Vande Mataram in the background.

Bucket List #17:- Discover new colors.

Bucket List #18:- Strike out all the previous seven inanities mentioned and focus hard on #10.

Bucket List #19:- Make an offer that got refused the first time around.

Bucket List #20:- Learn to write the way Obama does with a twisted wrist.

Bucket List #21:- Quit social media sooner or later…whichever happens later.

Come to think of it, every little thing we do must be a part of someone else' Bucket List. By that logic, we are all living each other's dreams.

Lost in the labyrinth of tweets!

As of now, Twitter is a religion. At least for the tweeps. For the uninitiated, tweeps are the ones who gave up on ‘real’ life and signed up for Twitter instead. It’s almost similar to the selling-your-soul-to-the-devil-at-a-discounted-price thing. Of course, we shouldn’t generalize the entire crowd on the basis of the majority. Yes, there are some exceptions who sign up and then forget their passwords, and in the process, save themselves from getting 140-ed.

For us, Twitter is more than just an addiction. It’s part of a lifestyle. Moreover, it won’t be an exaggeration to state there are 3 types of people on Twitter: those who never want to leave; those who are always here; and the rest.

You wake up and find yourself on the timeline. You are just dying to make an impression. You can crack a joke, post an url link or twitpic. And the best part is even that won’t make you an attention whore. One fish never accuses another fish of being wet. Everyone is in. Yes, some get luckier than others but it doesn’t matter. Everybody’s part of the stage and there is enough space for more. This urge to be heard via tweets is beyond typos. Sometimes, it’s beyond grammar, too. Unfortunately.

Like Tyler Durden once nearly said, “This is twittermania and it's ending one tweet at a time.”

Different people are on Twitter for different reasons. Majority are of the social kind. They don’t mind transforming the timeline back to the heydays of Yahoo! chatroom. Minuscule few are dedicated to mentionless tweeting. But one factor binds all the tweeps – their unconstrained disdain for Orkut and in some cases, Facebook. Anyway, it’s a bit hypocritical on our part to find our common alma mater at fault when it’s clearly not. Whatever goes.

Twitter's Unwritten Rule #1 - If you've got absolutely nothing to tweet, tweet.

So what do we tweet about? Well, we mostly tweet shit. No, seriously. We do. You know, stuff that don’t have an iota of significance, not even to the one who’s tweeting. In less harsher words, Twitter is an adult toy. We experience parallel universe, so to speak. After all, there is nothing wrong with it. Here, you become your handle. You don’t even need a topic to tweet. Just look around you. You see things. You tweet things. Simple. No hard and fast rules. No wonder we seem to get more news on Twitter than there is news in this world. Accordingly, we become a dreamer or an activist or a revolutionary. For a day or two or three or four. In a way, we successfully kill time. Sometimes we even kill celebrities. Remember the time when Twitter killed Nelson Mandela, Shashi Kapoor and Abida Parveen when they were pretty much alive? Good.

Twitter's Unwritten Rule #2 - Don't keep your crap to yourself. Your timeline is dying to *no*.

Twitter loves sad people and vice versa. Complaining about everything under the sky is a daily phenomenon. Nevertheless, you just find an excuse to tweet. For the record, you are a confirmed twitter-addict when you lose something in your house and search for it on your timeline. The point is you can be sad, cribby and lonely on Twitter. Facebook is not a place to cry your heart out. And even if you do, people will *like* that. Twitter allows you to be depressed. That’s one of the reasons why some of the most painfully honest gems (read: tweets) about sorry life could be seen post-midnight. It’s also when Twitter feels like a city annexed by hopeless romantics.

Twitter's Unwritten Rule #3 - Feel busier than you really are.

Twitter is dominated by social engineers who are busy wasting their precious talent on timeline. They’ve got all the solutions to all the problems to all the solutions in the world. Plus, there are some really creative people who are busy entertaining others. And there are the ones who feel bad for the world while staying comfy in their air-conditioned rooms. In short, Twitter is longer than 140 characters. Lots of characters, in fact. Some are trolls, some fanatics, some politicos, some so-called orkutiyas. But then, different people are on Twitter for different reasons.

N.B. I wrote this piece for Ashik Gosaliya's website so thought of sharing here, too.