While You Were Away

Away messages – oh how fun these little morsels of useless information can be. Though in all fairness to the picture above, I guess they can be useful in the most blunt/straightforward interactions, but I digress…back to hating on away messages. hate hate hate.

First, spare me the malarkey.  I realize that gchatting is the new AIM, but my hatred holds true for both mediums (this can be extended to Facebook status updates as well, but Facebook is a whole different story). If this is not the most blatant form of narcissism, then I don’t know what is. People have this expectation that others are actually interested in what they are doing. In fact, we’re apparently not only interested in what you’re doing in life, we need constant fucking updates as to what you’re doing right NOW. I’m gonna have to raise the bullshit flag on this one.

Before I continue this diatribe, is it just me, or did away messages [unfortunately] pave the way for twitter? Seems like a decent posit. I mean what is Twitter after all (leaving out Iranian usage), if not an indulgent gimmick that inflates one’s  self-worth.

Remember the days when people used to post quotes on their away messages? Those pathetic bastards need to be hit, very very hard. I’m sure Allen Ginsberg’s thoughts on meditation are apropos to your nothing of a life, but give the guy a break and stop lifting his quotes whenever a phrase can remotely describe a feeling/state your in, which by the way, no one gives two shits about. If there was truly a problem, you’d speak on the phone, text, email, or even converse on gchat.  jesus christ, there are so many fucking modes of communication; must you resort to the most basic, impersonal, common denominator?

 Let’s classify the two different forms: you have away messages and status messages. Mind you, both are retarded. Why do you even need a ‘current’ status message up there? If people actually cared,  theyd ask you about it.  Then youve got people who are online, but away (hence the away message) and you have people who are online and available but still feel the need to post a message under their buddy/gchat name, usually consisting of some sort of lame quote, inside joke, etc.

Status updates, such as ’shower,’ ‘sore throat,’ angry’ need to be stopped. Also, to add insult to youre already overblown sense of self-worth, some douches set messages when they aren’t even away anymore. How much douchier could you get. My guess is a lot, but whats the point of pushing the boundaries. For certain people, you can totally tell when they’re having a good day or a bad day, which is pathetic in its own right. Mildly narcissistic, or full blown narcissism? You be the judge, but either way, feeling the need to share your life with your fake buddies as though  they give a shit is detrimental to your mental health, easily decreasing your coolness by a factor of 3, at the very least.

Some say the away message game is a dying industry. I say the hell with all of you. If only it were a dying industry, i may, just may, be able to sleep a little bit better at night.  A simple facebook/gchat search will clearly rebut any notion to the contrary, as these pages are filled with people’s useless drek that they deem important. True, these away messages used to be few and far between, but with all these social media enablers, the market for quality aways messages has been saturated with the most useless bullshit.

Granted we all may be slightly guilty of this indulgence, but then again, there are habitual abusers…these people need to be stopped, like NOW. Intervention perhaps? You’re suffering from toolboxitus. You need a strong dose of no body gives a shit about your pathetic life/quotes/inside jokes (unless its funny, ie shameless promotion of this blog).