Is Facebook our ultimate utopia, where failures find no room?

“Placed at Vodafone”, feeling amazing!

“Bagged the first position in dance”, feeling excited!

Sounds familiar? Obviously we all have been witness to such enthusiastic statements, and often we have updated our own accomplishments in the same manner on the most popular platform of today’s era. And that’s Facebook.

When you have achieved what you wanted to or an unexpected assignment turns into an accomplishment, that is just beyond our ‘belief system’ and we are not able to contain it all by ourselves and our fingers instantly races towards our beloved social networking sites where we distinctly type each letter with a flutter of excitement, keeping in mind that every character, every word, is an epitome of our achievement. At least many of us do that.

But how many of us have ever talked about our failures? Who would think to update something like this – “lost the match”, “feeling blue!” Or “no placement day”, “feeling exhausted!”

I don’t know about others, but I never did something like that. So is this something to do with Facebook? Is it something that only accepts updates of “success stories” and strictly prohibits stories of disappointments? No, we all know it’s not. None of us voluntarily exhibits one’s failures and especially in front of the Facebook audience! Oh no! Not a chance.

Is Facebook our ultimate utopia? Or have we transformed into an ‘utopian world’ where starting from our snaps to our updated version of our success stories is neatly perfect, where you peek-a-boo into someone’s trips, rendezvous, family outings and let a sigh pass from your mouth which says – ‘ oh I so wish that was me!’ ?

Whenever I log into Facebook it seems to me that some kind of competition is going on for the best DPs, the best success story, the best outing, the best feeling! Oh yes, talking about the best feelings reminds me of how we definitely don’t post our failures but post our “heart failures”! Somebody cheated, or the crush didn’t respond, or no reply after seen at 9 p.m… There are numerous such instances.

So we fear our failures will be mocked and success will be cherished, but our ‘feelings’ will get the empathy and sympathy. Whenever I see posts like these I have this sincere empathy for them, not because I have also felt that but because I know that situational vulnerability that compels them to post something like that. But the hard fact is that nobody actually cares there because we all have our issues. Not just that, but because emotion in this area is just ‘show business’ and nothing else.

You really think that someone is going to ease your burden or heal that stinging pain? Yes, there are a few who will give some condolence and try to cheer you up, but what else they can do? When you log off you are sitting all by yourself and then you realise it’s no one but just you who will have to stand up and sort this out.

Are  your pain and failures that unbearable that you can’t sort it out with your family or your mentor or anyone who understands you well? Or you just trust that those comments and likes, ironically from those who don’t know a thing about your life struggles, would make a difference?

There are some persons out there who are not biologically perfect! Now who is more in pain or struggling with their lives daily to just survive the day? Yet they are the ones who know the enchanting beauty of life! They have that sense of consciousness that many of us lack, and that’s why their rear view mirror has something else to show than ours. And not only they, but those who have their passion restored with their faith and smiles: they also have something different to convey.

Just log out of your devices for once, forget about posting anything and appreciate the reality because you never know you might again hear that lively tune of your favourite song while sitting in a bus or walking in a park.

Vandana,Department of Communicative English with Media Studies

  interns, social media