Wednesday, March 22, 2006

On Hi5, Isnt It Your Pic You're Supposed To Display??

One thing I dont get about so many of the people who use hi5. Hi5, for the uninitiated, is a website that allows a user to upload snaps of himself, fill in a detailed profile and maintain a list of friends or contacts. You can stay in touch with them this way, by keeping a journal on your daily doings etc or sending messages across the hi5 server.

I joined hi5 with the typical enthusiasm of any teenager looking to break free (from the comfort of my bedroom) and meet exciting wonderful people from around the world (who also spend most of their time in front of the computer, so that's one thing we share). But it doesnt take much time for this enthusiasm to transmutate into irritation and finally annoyance that so many people are just acting plain stupid with their profiles and most of all with their display pictures.

You get an entire gallery in which you can collate all the pictures of yourself right from yourself shaking hands with the Pope to feeding your kitten - pictures that you dont mind being viewed by possibly every geek in the world atleast. It's paradise for all the narcissistic people that have come up since Aishwarya Rai and Sushmita Sen dropped pearly tears on their Miss This and Miss That crowns bak in 1994. But then there is hi5. Why why why does someone have to put up some celebrity's pic as THEIR display pic????? I mean, whats wrong with your own bloody pic???

'Your display pic' means PIC OF YOU!! Isnt the whole point of a site like this to meet new people and make new friends?? So, how do these kind of people expect to make friends if they're so afraid of even being SEEN as themselves.

How do these twisted minds work---

"hi everybody! i want to make gr8 new friends here from all over the world, since im a very different and unique person who cn adjust wid ne1 blah blah blah blah blah blah....oh and btw, i wud like to show u my VERY OWN snap of this awesomely hot actress, so dat u know jst hw gr8 a guy i am!! isnt dat realli realli cool and smart of me?? im so sorry dat i cant let u see me as i am...im reali reali ugly...ban ban a caliban....dats one f the reasons i dnt hav frens rite now...so here, look at this pic of john abraham half-naked above my name and maybe we can be best friends!!!!!!!!!"

I dont want to demean anyone who is crazily in love with John Abraham's chest hair or something (actually I do, but I shoudn't say that out straight) but arent there any limits? I'm not saying that you should all be pretty and photogenic. Everyone cannot be miss universe - as it is there's only one every year and some people dont like to pose in a bikini so no problem - but I go on hi5 to 'meet' ppl and make friends (and I have succeeded to some extent too), and I can stay in touch with all my distant friends too. I think they have the right to know exactly how human I look.

Basically, I'd jst like to ask all the people currently hiding behind Aishwarya Rai's eyes, David Beckham's hairdos or Carmen Electra's neva-mind-wats, to go ahead and buy themselves some common sense. Click a few snaps or atleast upload an actual picture of yourself that you havent burnt down in shame yet.

Very Important Note: I am not trying to endorse this website or anything stupid like that at all. Just making a point about the amazing Neanderthal-ness of so many of the users.

3 comments:

kyra said...

man i totally agree with you.
i joined hi5 back when it was barely known and i can't help cursing that day. the whole bloody world seems to be on hi5 now, and for some weird reason that fact creeps me out. earlier i didn't have a pic-thought it was too much of a bother to upload. but then someone pestered me into it and from that day onwards i kept getting like 20 friend requests and the most ridiculous messages every day. no, im not flattering myself here- they were mostly from people who were above 25, and they seemed more attracted to my friend who also happened to be in the pic with me. i was amused at first, but needless to say, i got pretty sick of it in sometime...so i took the pics off and changed my profile too. ok wait this is turning out to be an insanely long comment. so i'll stop here.

Anonymous said...

look i cant agree on this.. granted that it is stupid that these ppl dont put up their pics on the given site.. but u cant blame them..wud u wanan put upur pic on a site

Anonymous said...

Don't agree with you about not putting up a pic. certainly, putting up a pic of a celeb is silly and irritating but you can't say it's wrong not to put up a pic. man, internet is a home for all kinds of people. Don't you think a girl will think twice before she puts up her pic?