Skip to main content

7 Deadly Sins and Facebook popularity


My last blog question was, “What makes people popular (in facebook)”. I was busy as a dung beetle to post anything about it. Blaming again my father, mother, mother-in-law and my wife for not being rich people, here I am squeezing some time on it.

Remember the “7 deadly sins”? If not, let me be the badass to whisk them up - Lust, Gluttony, Greed, Wrath, Sloth, Envy and Pride. Now, I think the 7 deadly sins is a fantastic framework that explains one’s popularity. Believe me, thousands of years of research has gone into this.

Let’s take ‘lust’ for example. Everybody loves seeing naked bottoms? We invented fire to see them even in the darkness. We invented printing press to enjoy seeing their images too. Motion pictures to see them in action. And, not to forget - The Internet. What is the internet full of? Okay, that’s stretching it too far. But lust plays an important role in making one popular. I am seeing my circle of friends in facebook. The sexier ones are almost always popular (Yatin, Kay, Roslinda, Babul… )

What about envy? We envy the rich (Bill Gates). We envy the crazy (Britney Spears). We envy the talented (Susan Boyle). Zimbly, if you can make people jealous, you become popular. Sloth? We are generally sloths. We want our bananas pealed, put into our mouths and our jaws moved too. In this knowledge era, if you can bring vital news/information/insights to people’s easy attention, you gain instant popularity.

And its very easy to see the rest of them in action too. Gluttony – Pamela, the cooking Ninja, gets 5 comments even on the deflated cake she bakes. Btw, there are also “7 holy virtues” of which I don’t give a shit. Generally, one needs to be bribed and threatened to follow the holy virtues. But the deadly sins, they flow glibly longer, deeper and faster. Now, the objective here is not to be a sinner. But popularity seems to seek one who knows how to leverage on these fundamental forces.

Opinions?
Labels:

Comments

  1. UnknownJune 8, 2009 at 10:54 PM

    Raja,

    People who spend 5 hours on facebook everyday are better connected. It has nothing to do with sexiness!!! 90% of the people on my FB do not know me in person nor have ever met me. It is how much time I spend in front of the puter. At the moment 80% time is spent connected to internet and 10% clicking pics and 10% sleeping. Either I am clickin keys on keybord or fotos...

    I wish I had a better schedule than this :) Happy Clickin' :P

    Cheers
    Babul

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Birthdays and Facebook

I read about a guy who had 400+ friends in Facebook. One day he woke up as a curious little wanker and wondered if he is really that sociable. So he organized a party and sent invitations to all his contacts over Facebook. 50% confirmed and another 20% were tentative. He was delighted - that’s one hell of a response, actually. The real day came. Our man waited at the venue, which happened to be a popular joint, but no single soul turned up. An hour later, one woman came but she also left in the next 30 minutes. He had 400 friends and yet he ended up drinking alone that night. So the question to ponder is how close are our virtual worlds to the reality? . But my case was quite not as somber. Yesterday was my birthday. Facebook reminded of it to a whole lot of my gang. Some of them have never wished me in decades and some are new. How exciting! So here is my big thanks to all my dear friends for the wishes over calls, sms and facebook. You made me feel special. Special thanks to cutie p...
9 comments
Read more

A Date - Part 1

“Good Morning. How is everything? Did you manage to have an early breakfast date with yourself?” I was on the bed in a hotel room in Jakarta when that SMS woke me up. I only managed to get a very few hours of sleep that night. Even in that, my mind went churning non-stop on some meaningless, unconnected things. I was literally aware of all that turmoil in the half sleep, twisting and tossing through it. Back to the SMS. All the SMS I get usually are with a single consistent purpose - my colleagues trying to find my whereabouts. Note - none of them is a hot babe. (This is altogether a different topic - how come no hot chick in this whole damn world manages to become an IT architect!!) Oh, for a change, I do occasionally get some irritating marketing campaigns. So, it is not a wonder that this message sprang me awake like a Maasai Warrior. (Maasai are an African tribe famous for their ability to rise from the deepest sleep to a state of total combat readiness in a matter of seconds)...
2 comments
Read more

What is my utilitarianism?

I am a utilitarian. Do you know how hard it is to live as a utilitarian these days? You often get mocked in closer circles. In the pretentious places, you are looked down upon. You are generally pushed to feel like a flying swine - strange, curious and out of place. The problem is the word ‘utility’ in it. The commoners derive a shallow meaning that it is utility before happiness. Utility before pleasure. Stretching it a bit, they think that a utilitarian denies pleasures, leads a boring life of a miser, does not appreciate finer things in life and is generally a philistine. But utilitarianism is exactly opposite of that. I will be a damned liar if I declare that I am holy and have renounced all the pleasures. The tricky thing, and here in lies a great secret about the art of living, is to understand what pleasure really is. I think there is such a thing as ‘ supreme ’ pleasure. And by virtue of the existence of a supreme pleasure, there are also ‘ inferio...
2 comments
Read more