{"id":2995,"date":"2016-07-21T10:46:33","date_gmt":"2016-07-21T05:16:33","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/13.201.39.237\/?p=2995"},"modified":"2016-07-21T10:46:33","modified_gmt":"2016-07-21T05:16:33","slug":"instagram-people-social-media-features","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/13.207.105.184\/?p=2995","title":{"rendered":"Main Aur Meri Tanhai: Instagram\u2019s \u201cAsk Me a Question\u201d Feature is Peak Loneliness"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

H<\/span><\/p><\/div>

ave some time to kill, so ask me a question y\u2019all.<\/span>\n\nWill you <\/span><\/i>date <\/span><\/i><\/a>me? What is your favourite show? Your favourite country? Who let the dogs out? And who the fuck is Alice?!<\/span><\/i>\n\nInstagram\u2019s new \u201cAsk Me a Question\u201d feature seems perfect for people with bios that read \u201cstart-up founders\u201d to <\/span>\u201cwanderlust chasers\u201d<\/span><\/a> and have the same \u201ctime to kill\u201d that leaves them feeling more chatty than usual. Only it isn\u2019t a chat in the real sense. It is more like a beauty pageant where people answer questions and paste them on a wall for everyone to see. It makes me almost miss Gchat when a handful of people cared every day if I\u2019d found a <\/span>dog<\/span><\/a> to pet or a <\/span>boss<\/span><\/a> to kill.<\/span>\n\nBut <\/span>Instagram<\/span><\/a> wasn\u2019t always like this. Once upon a time, it was a knight in shining armour that had come to save us from the mundane mediocrity that Facebook had become, one pretty photo at a time. It was a decent place where both commoners and celebrities came to share the most picturesque of moments spent, complete with a caption or two. <\/span>\n\nSometimes these captions would be lines by great poets, and at other times, something approaching a <\/span>Rupi Kaurism<\/span><\/a>. Either way, people, most of whom had fled the local train called Facebook, hopped aboard this elite jet plane only to share photos of them reading books with their legs outstretched and enjoy the camaraderie when <\/span>Twinkle Khanna<\/span><\/a> or another actor did the same.<\/span>\n\n

Insta gifted us the chance to choose questions that are juicy enough without prying our inner shells open.<\/p><\/blockquote> \n\nHowever, much slower than how a zombie turns, the app became like our PM\u2019s <\/span>Mann ki Baat<\/span><\/a>, a kind of soapbox from where one can say what s\/he wants without anyone replying. Where one is alone but imagines one has company. It introduced a new feature called \u201cstories\u201d and in one move, excited and alienated our social media-crazed generation a little more. While stars realised they could just rant away and paid influencers could plug just about anything, the rest of us found an easy way to use these stories \u2013 we started sharing the most exciting parts of our day, from getting a Harry Potter bobblehead from the best friend to the first-ever kadhi chawal we made as a \u201ctribute to mom\u201d. <\/span>\n\nIt also became our place of sadness, with some sharing time hop photos, missing the wanderlust of that one Prague village they\u2019d been to, to a farewell party they were too drunk to remember (but miraculously had saved photographic evidence of). Some took their profound, funny, and vulnerable thoughts away from the negative cesspool Twitter had become, and brought them to Instagram. A popular Mumbai comedian and actor is the perfect example of this: He shares his favourite <\/span>Marvel storylines<\/span><\/a>, his fitness journey, his cynicism at the government and media, to his\u00a0struggles and victories over <\/span>anxiety<\/span><\/a>, neatly capping about 20 stories in a 24-hour period, regularly.<\/span>\n\nHowever, while it is interesting to know about people like him who are constantly in the public eye and instructive to see how <\/span>fame<\/span><\/a> changes things (or doesn\u2019t), it isn\u2019t so great when your next-door <\/span>neighbour<\/span><\/a> put up five badly shot photos of the champa he has grown accompanied with a post on why it\u2019s special to him. Because the words are worse than the pictures. <\/span>\n\nI know, I know, that I\u2019m being judgmental and that I am free to unfollow him and all the rest of it. But stories have become yet another pedestal through which to shout into the abyss, and to reassure yourself that you\u2019re still the star of your story. Even if people are unfollowing or muting you all the time. \u00a0\u00a0<\/span>\n\nThen finally, as if to crown itself as the primary app of making people truly lonely \u2013 I mean \u201ctalking to themselves\u201d kinda <\/span>lonely<\/span><\/a> \u2013 Instagram launched its \u201cAsk Me a Question\u201d feature recently. Yet another \u201csafe\u201d way to convince you that yes, your followers are indeed interested in your <\/span>life<\/span><\/a> in a deeply personal way. It works on the serotonin bump that you feel, that drives your need for human interaction. And yet, it remains a one-way street, where you have a conversation without actually having one. Just the way our generation likes it.<\/span>\n\nWe want to have <\/span>connections<\/span><\/a>, to mean something to our community, but we\u2019d rather do it in the passive voice. So Insta gifted us the chance to choose questions that are juicy enough without prying our inner shells open. We choose the ones we want to answer and display, still curating them to see what best fits the virtual image we\u2019ve created of ourselves. By the end of the day, all we\u2019ve really accomplished is that we have managed to remind people of our existence without having had to really talk to any of them. <\/span>\n\nIn this last week of \u201cAsk Me a Question,\u201d I\u2019ve gotten to know more about people\u2019s favourite actors and <\/span>food<\/span><\/a> than in the last two years of my time using the app. It\u2019s like the slam book that was passed around in class but the problem is, the slam books of our past belonged to our friends, people whose kadhi chawal tributes meant something to us. <\/span>\n\nI wonder what feature is next on Instagram\u2019s list. Filters with creatures that you can adopt as pets with a built-in feature that allows users to give you pet advice? Polls that allow followers to select your #OOTD for you? A feature that lets you know exactly who refused to view your <\/span>selfie or story<\/span><\/a>? It won\u2019t take our loneliness away, but at least there will be that blip of serotonin to look forward to. \u00a0<\/span>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Instagram once saved us from the mundane mediocrity of Facebook, one pretty photo at a time. 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