The Stat(us)E of being
You open your email.
Let's see now....delete, delete, boorrring, delete immediately.
Your eyes stray to the left hand corner.
Wow – lots of green. You obviously know a whole bunch of cyber-space goof-off-ers.
Then you see it.
A 'status' message peeping out from under a name, stating: 'Stepping on eggshells of thin ice...'
Offered such delightful hokum, you abandon email for this far more promising avenue for imaginative speculation.
Status messages can be such fun – and intriguing.
Like the one that goes: 'I'm the lost cause I was warned about...'
A line like that offers some fascinating opportunities to re-think long held opinions, especially of people you think you know.
Another preaches: 'Reach for the moon, you may at least bag some stars'.
Hmm.... this has addicted-to-self-help-books all over it.
A martyred one sniffles: 'I'm going just so you'll miss me.'
Now that's just sad – silly sad, at that.
Status messages may have begun as a mere means of instant indicators, but they're turning into an art form.
Is it a little like peeping into someone's mind?
Or offering people deliberately tantalising glimpses of your life?
Perhaps.
But hey – it's a whole new world of 'speaking', 'seeing' and 'talking' these days....and 'reaching out to touch someone'.
As Biswajit, our cartoonist, is out of town, his cartoon does not appear this fortnight
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