World Cup Bug

Has it bitten you as well? It has, to me and millions of others! Everywhere it's cricket, scores, matches, heart breaks, celebrations, bets, predictions, tweets, posts, articles and on and on and on. Now that India has reached semi final and going to play Pakistan, everyone is looking forward to it! Each and every cricket fan knows how important the clash is. Tony Greig said that he wouldn't want to miss a single ball of that match! Who would?

Like always, various brands have made so many ads around WC theme, hiring top line players (top line as I didn't see Munaf Patel or Nehra in any ad. are they there too?). I am sure if you watch WC matches then you must have seen those ads too - Pepsi ads - the official sponsor of helicopter shot, ungli mein tingli - dusra, Malinga's slinga, Sehwag's Upar shot and what not! Then there is parryware ad, Nike ad - bleed blue, Ruffles Lays ad, Idea Ads - I wish corporates would spend this money on employees than such useless pursuits!

But, like they say, it's easy to sit, comment and criticize than be there and make a decision! Yeah, right!

By the way, it's earth hour right now. That means we have to turn off all the lights, electronic appliances etc. for an hour. Someone put it very nicely on twitter: "@MihirBijur: Earth Hour to a nation suffering from Load shedding is like calling a fat woman, gravitationally challenged. all fancy but full of shit!". I think on a similar line too!

Tweet reminds me the time we have during India matches. It's fun bashing cricketers, posting about the game, reading the opinion, those tensed moments at the end of the match - if you follow right kind of people, you will have much more fun watching the match and no, it is NOT a distraction for the match!

India's entry to Semis have ensured that there is enough of spamming everywhere. Facebook has come up with a stupid application where you have to take a poll. Each and every person is taking it and spamming. As if it would actually decide who will win. Guria correctly said that Indian population is more than that of Pakistan's. So naturally the result will be in the favour of India.

Apart from the WC matches, my dissertation is keeping me busy. I have to write 200 pages on a topic that has 10 page info in the textbook. sigh! Life can be so cruel at times. Work, assignments, match - everything together. I am in demand!!

And, someone asked me whether twitter will replace blogs or not? My answer was no. It cannot and won't. Yes, people around me have become irregular, but twitter is NOT the reason behind it. Ah I should have chosen Twitter World Cup as the header!

The Number Game

I was discussing blogging with a friend yesterday. He was of the opinion that quite a few people (including me) take the online life too seriously. Be it blogging or other social networking sites. People take part in contests, get offended on remarks made on social networking sites, bash others and react on such trivial things and such. Well, a few of the things are applicable to me, like I feel really offended if someone writes wrong things about me or tries to malign my name and reputation which is too dear to me. Defending that is taking online things seriously, then yes, I do take it seriously.

When it comes to blogging, I write when I feel like and time permits. I neither write for numbers or comments since the time I have started blogging. I don't take part in blog contests too if you ignore my BPL participation which went on for quite a long period as we won it! 

But my dear friend is unaware that there are people who really take the online world way too seriously. Whatever he mentioned were not even the qualifiers for being "serious" about social networking. He is a very busy person so I can't ask him to check a few blog communities or twitter, but the day I do, he will call me the sanest person he knows on this planet earth!

People breathe sites. They kill for numbers. When I was new to blogging, I got many comments saying - "nice blog. Please visit mine too, follow and leave a comment". I knew so many bloggers who used to visit 50 odd blogs a day just to get those 50 comments each day! They seldom read the posts, maintained a style and words when it came to commenting, ALWAYS praised the blogger to be in her (well, it's usually her. very few visit his blogs!) good books. And it worked too for many. They always got the "desired" number at the end of the day. The only thing they cared for - the number! In case of comments, followers, hits, page views. 

Slowly the "follow blog" trend shifted to facebook fan page. People sent invites left-right-center for asking friends to be the "fan" of their blog page. After that faded away, now it was Twitter's turn. And when it comes to twitter followers, people still fight for them, cry when they un-follow and celebrate when they have a "special" number as followers like 500 or 1000 etc. Recommendations, follow friday, mutual admiration clubs are few of the main features of twitter. 

Ah, it's all about numbers these days. Number of comments on blog, number of fans on facebook and number of followers on twitter. 

My dear friend should see those numbers, then he will know that I am but a minuscule (rather, non existing) part of this social networking bandwagon. I am sure his definition of "celebrity" will change after that for sure!