Social Media - Simply Complicated

R says:

Do you remember when people started defining their relationships as “It’s complicated”? This is not the only term coined during the age of social networking – just one of the many. 

Starting with emailing and then googling, we have been introduced to social networking via linkedin, facebook, whatsapp, instagram and countless other websites and applications that have become from small to medium to large businesses in their own rights.

There was a time, when people spent time meeting each other or reading a book or on other hobbies, now they spent many of those hours on social media – liking and disliking (no such option available – hence by way of not pressing the “like” button) each other’s life posts. Connecting with long lost friends became possible as much as being able to track each other’s lives. More so the social stalking (of old loves) has become a favored time pass. These days apparently, you can just break up with anyone over social media as well (appalling or convenient?). Do we need rules (just like dating rules) of what should be acceptable behavior?

I was at a café in Sydney, which stated, “no we do not have wi-fi, we encourage you to talk to each other” which left me thinking. Has social networking really encouraged us to socialize more or has it actually alienated us into a virtual world away from reality. Can you even imagine your life without wi-fi anymore – not being able to check what friends are posting on their facebook accounts?

To be fair, social media does enable social networking, making the world flat and accessible for us. It is a pleasure to see my long lost school friends doing so well via linkedin, and I am really pleased to see their children growing up, their holiday jaunts via pictures on facebook and instagram. It also enables me to keep in touch with them and wish them on their special days (which I could never manage to remember otherwise!). I am happy to be able to ask for advice from my professional mentors and whom am I kidding, I have even managed to procure jobs via linkedin. So it is definitely effective and useful.

Nothing in this world comes without a price though, so is the case with social media. Sometimes I feel I make less effort towards my relationships, as I would have if there were no such easy way. I find myself favoring, spending hours on social media during weekends instead of actually walking out of the apartment and making new friends or meeting the ones I have. These are easier things to deal with, in my humble opinion with some self-restraint and self-discipline. What is disturbing is when you hear people getting punished for the opinions they expressed on social media (since its public)! Does this mean we are losing our freedom by using an avenue truly meant to promote freedom of speech? It is disturbing to see this channel for bringing people together, being used as a cheap means of stalking by anti-social elements.

Every new innovation goes through a cycle of change, and social media is on the upward spiral in the current times. Do you think we are leading towards ultimate disengagement or is this innovation here to stay, just like electricity, to become an indispensible part of our lives? I am no foreteller, so cannot predict the future course, however I do believe that we should promote the autonomy vs. the immurement. That, I think is the real power and it's simply complicated.

B says:

Social Media, something that we all got introduced to through Orkut and now are addicted to through Facebook and Linkedin. One for entertainment and the other for career - but now and I lose track - after Facebook and Twitter, we have Snapchat, Whatsapp, Instagram, Myspace and million other ranging from not so successful Google + to very successful dating sites. After the word social media got popular our lives changed drastically.

It became a way of life - we embodied all the teachings of the marketing gurus - we knew all the Ps and the Cs, whether we know what they stand for or not (like for the life of me I cannot remember what they were) if you ask us to depict our vacations, festivities and display of uber life and in some cases glamorized rural life we do it like we all individually own a marketing theory.

Having said so, it is easy to display pomp and splendor and easier to stalk our exes, snoop into their lives, leave them drunken messages typed or recorded and worse never really get a grip over our lives. 

Our pages are a reflection of who we are and what we like. Our friends are a reflection of what we want since they exist on our pages whether we have them in our lives or not.

It is like a tracking system, friends who number unto a thousand sometimes, colleagues who send you unsolicited requests which you cannot ignore and relatives who clutter your e space with forwards and tags. Birthdays of people who you have trouble recalling keep popping up and game prompts take all your attention up.

We love our social media and we are lazy because of it. We type and better still as we type we get emoji prompts us to be nice, funny silly and even polite.

We are lazy because we think we can have a webpage and sharing it will be profitable - monetarily or socially. 

I am beginning to believe that we are now forced to being mediocre with social media, but the big question is had it not been for social media would we know most of the things we do. 

I firmly believe that social media is something that we need in our live after all as R says it is innovation and in all forms innovation is what will make us live. The thing however is, like all innovation we need to be able to decide when to customize an innovation for our benefit, how to contain the innovation before it goes out of hand and becomes a web world which will neither stop terror nor replenish our natural resources 

Use it wisely to help our lives and now flounder it to display our non existent exciting lives

Trophy Wives

R says – 
“On the arm of every (mostly, anyways) rich (considerably old) man is his trophy wife”.  This saying would have been most appropriate until a few years back, when old(er) men felt, having a (considerably) young drop dead gorgeous and sexually desirable female on their arms, was a sign of prestige. Was it their own insecurity in fading youth or display of power to be able to afford a beauty with a greater love for money and decadences as such?
Media has done its part (reasonably well), in acquainting us (the lesser mortals) with the spicy morsels surrounding these surreal women who decorated the magazine pages and were in news, surely not for their intelligence. Girls wanted to look like them and women were envious of them. While flicking through the gossip columns, each wondering, “why would she want to be with this man? He is so old and ugly” With a deep sigh, would realize that it was the money playing its part.
Every not so conventionally beautiful woman, at one point or the other has experienced the sharp pang of jealousy (deny all you like!) when made to sit next to a “diva” looking woman on the plane, or conferences or trains (you know what I mean). It takes a few moments for these brainy women to catch their breath and realize beauty doesn’t make Diva’s, actions do. Would they trade their right to (very strong) opinions for a few years of beauty that would turn heads? How many times have they thought in their heads “I wish I could marry a billionaire and just live a life of indulgence and luxury or even just travel the world on his yacht!”
Let me clarify – This is not about being beautiful or ugly in appearance or some such nonsensical ideas. It is about women choosing to be individual in their own right, with right to choose and opinions and independence or desiring to live as a mere shadow (though good looking, well dressed in designer brands and living in luxury) of someone else, in silence.
Trophy wife, a genre in itself, still exists, I am sure. But as Huffington Post writes, “Brains are the new beauty” I find it heartening to see a George Clooney making a choice to be with Amal Clooney (I am sure the choice would have been harder for her – he is, after all, just an actor, even though a considerably talented one!) or know Women CEO’s of global giants with stay at home husbands. So are we truly turning the tide, the right way, finally?
As the laws of economics states, we are still waiting for the tipping point where brains will finally take over as a more precious commodity in women over beauty. Until then, the two will co-exist – beautiful women wanting to be nothing more than an arm candy for a rich man (sugar daddy), and intelligent women who would be sexually attractive by the virtue of their brains. Beauties will watch the world change in silence and the Brains will make the change happen.

B says - 
Trophy Wives! I like that name, is it because they are all shaped like trophies, big crown, big base and a narrow waist? Or is it because they are shiny and dazzling?
I want a trophy wife and I want to be one too. Either way it is great for the economics. 
With a trophy wife there is a chance that the next investor will look at my wife and admire her glitter and I will get a chance for a 3 minute elevator pitch to explain why the shitty idea that I stole from some one else is now suddenly a huge potential for success. The investor, if my luck prevails will confuse herself with the dazzle of my wife's newly polished teeth and nod in affirmation to my 'borrowed but soon becoming mine with some customization', idea.
Viola! I am a multimillionaire, better still a billionaire with a potential to fund my election campaign and be a political leader at a later date.
No! I won't go there, this isn't about the world's most entertaining election campaign, and it is about trophy wives. So I stick to that for now. Flip side is if the investor doesn't like the teeth or the hair then I am doomed, but trophy wives are not dumb, they are with you because you have potential or better still you are not a bum and have already established yourself. If you are lucky, then your trophy wife is just smart enough to use you as a financier and invest in her multibillion-dollar idea - which perhaps is original and very GQ ish.
While in the beginning of the write up I toyed with the idea of wanting to be one - trophy wife I mean. I think it is a lot of work. 
First you cannot eat, worse is you cannot look like you do not eat. So you have to strike that scientific perhaps yogic balance. Then you need to have the shine on, the glow, which comes from “inner peace” so, you really need to go to book clubs and spas. Bimbo trophy wives are out - they have been divorced and have taken the idiotic pre-nup they had agreed to what then had seemed like a huge amount.
Only later they realized that it was a minuscule they agreed to. 
Smart Trophies are smart - period they are also hard working. They take the language lessons, knows their Shakespeare and Picasso, can walk in a golf course in designer golf shoes and swing a club to match the Man.
They work hard so they deserve the pools and the yachts along with the jets.
Bonus comes from the fact that they don't wince when the wig of the boy comes off or nasty breath weighs the odor of the parlor down.
They smile and absorb it with grace and élan. I want to be them but I don't have the grit to be them, so I can only dream of being them.
Why do we call them Trophy wives though? I still don't have that answer. Is it like winning something? What? Love and affection? Or Intelligent mate and companion? Are trophy wives only models or are they also role models? Would Madam Curie be a trophy wife? Wouldn't the world be ecstatic to show her off? Look my mate is a Nobel Laureate!
Is " Trophy Wife" a derogatory term?
I don't think so; I think it is an appreciative term. One has to have qualities to be won and be able to instill a sense of pride for having been won. One has to be an equalist to be able to accept the term Trophy and not see it as a term of being objectified. If trophy is a symbol of winning anyone who has a trophy wife should feel accomplished and the " trophy" feel great that she has the qualities that makes people compete for her affection and attention.
I am still in dilemma. I want to be a trophy wife but I do not have the skills for it. 
Maybe I should do something big and relevant consistently to get in queue and as I progress the line I hope to be brighter and shinier and more skillful to one day be standing on a podium to be fought for.