So whats your Social Acceptance Number?

God, back after years! And I don't even know why. Honestly, I have no concrete reason. Just wanted to pen down something. Guess I am bored of the gram, Twitter, and other jazz platforms of the world. Yeah, you heard it right. 

It started as a love story, which turned sour in the end - A perfect Love story, Right? That what love stories are all about - starts with butterflies in the stomach, a never-ending urge to see each other, blossoming love, getting into a relationship, trying hard, and then bam, you stop enjoying each other's company just like that!

That's what happened between me and these social media platforms. I just don't enjoy them anymore. 

There is no authenticity left to these platforms now. I used to enjoy sharing stuff there, but now it seems to be a burden - a burden of numbers, insights, analytics, and whatnot. Why are we so desperate to label everything in the world as Success or non-success. When did the world become this black and white? Why has everything turned into this sort of 'a game'? Why? 

I still share stuff there for my friends and family - but at my own terms and pace. The only difference is now I don't get carried away with the pressure of rules to be followed to beat the algorithm of Instagram:  one should post daily just to keep up with the numbers, one should post at this particular time to get max engagement, one should comment on these many numbers of posts to get the same reciprocated, one should post these many numbers of reels to get noticed and blah blah.

I don't adhere to any conviction, I don't follow any rule now. I understood one thing - we are there fighting/luring/chasing a f*&^ing algorithm - not even a real person. 

What have we become? And what is the price that we are paying for all this? Our Sanity! Look at people on these platform, they do, say anything just for some followers, likes, or whatever the metric is. We are being driven by METRICS! And this metric system is getting into our very being now, it's becoming a habit, a part of us. Were schools and colleges not enough that now, even in real life we are being slapped with these numbers! Mark my words, one day there will be a social acceptance number or social reputation number given to us, based on these shitty metrics driven by some f*&ing algorithm - about whom nobody has any idea! Is it justified? Where are we heading as a society? We are becoming digital slaves - slaves of the virtual world!

Is there no place where you can go, meet strangers-real people, talk about stuff, and share things/parts from your life without inhibition of being judged? Without any burden of being graded by some numbers? 

I don't think so! Everything revolves around numbers these days. And guess, so I am back to my old platform - blogging where I can talk, share and vent out without thinking much about any algorithm, any 'insightful' data to judge my posts, my words, and my stuff. 

Everybody out there seems to be faking it now - the smiles, the trips, the happiness, relationships - everything looks so made-up. Honestly even the genuine content gets cast away into the dust. Because the trust factor is decreasing with each passing day.

And I feel I can't play this game of pretension anymore. It's enough for me. The thing is you need to amputate people/things from your life when they turn toxic for you. You should choose your mental health and just walk away from stuff that no more brings happiness or joy. It is a piece of cliched advice but still holds good. And the problem with we-bipeds is we don't know where to draw the line, where to say no to something. 

We go into this black hole of thinking why our lives are not as perfect as those on the gram? Why our everyday(s) are so normal and not instragramable? Why? And don't even get me started on filters!!! Are there any real faces on the gram now - everybody is with Flawless glass skin, bright infallible eyes, pouted lips - Instagram has really raised the standards of beauty! Can we ever go back to accepting the real us - fallible, flawed people with pigmented skin, pores, not-so-perfect features, and grey hair?

Will not lie, even I had fallen into that pit! There were days when I used to get tremendously worked up into some kind of a fit of pique. But not anymore. I want my sanity more than anything. I want to be happy - as simple as that.

And these social media platforms have some kind of a magnet, the more you try to run away from them, the more they attract you. It's a black hole - you only get sucked in and it's almost impossible to get out of it without any damage. 

And let's not even talk about Twitter. It's full of hate - yes! It's filled with armchair detectives, keyboard warriors, and self-proclaimed intellectuals - who are just there to take out their frustrations. Pick up any random post on Twitter and just directly jump on to the comments section - and you will understand what I am talking about - it's filled with tawdry speculations, no-filter opinions and offensive statements. Everybody is an impossibly bumptious opinioned ass there! They all are experts on economics, politics, sports, and all the subjects. 

These platforms are doing more damage to us than any other thing. Have we lost all sense of sanity? And the influencers - so-called influencers - promulgating anything and everything for some bucks. I don't even want to go down that lane.

Look, I am not passing judgment here. I am nobody to do that. It is just that where has our collective sense of responsibility gone? 

It's like the world is reveling in some kind of collective stupidity! 

The question is when will this stop? When? When will we jump out of this quicksand and stand on a firm ground? When? When everybody will start hating everything? When we all will become so toxic that we wouldn't want to meet each other in person? or when we will all become zombies?

Think about it next time before getting driven away by those meaningless numbers, so-called insightful data - it's all baloney, oh, a load of baloney. Get back to your real life filled with real people, real love, and friendships with no judgments. I am telling you this because I have been down that lane, it's only dark out there - it's only dark!