The Worst of Orkut
Orkut is a wonderful place to find friends with common interests. Orkut also helps one find dates. It is an awesome site to keep in touch with your long lost classmates and friends who sailed across the ocean to pursue that degree they'd always been raving about.
Just like most other people in my age group who have access to computers and a decent Internet connection, I have an Orkut account. If I remember correctly, I have had it for about two years now. What started out to be this elite, by-invitation-only access where you'd find fellow geeks and nerds, proliferated into a site where even my little cousin sister has an account and hence knows all my friends, what they scrapped today and the testimonials they wrote.
Of course, that is a good problem to have. The other not-so-nice side? On an average, I get about 15 scraps a day from folks I don't know. I'm only happy with the profound love and affection these unknown folks have for me. If only it made sense. Why, oh, why can't people write in a language that I can grok?
There's a lot in a name - A lot of Orkut names sound like a riddle to me. So much that when one of them tries sending me a friend request or a scrap, I need to pull out a pencil to decipher the name. It is always some GoDfAtheR or ♥♥♥ अिनष ♥♥♥ a²+b²-m²+c²-h²+k² or DeviL$$EyE### or (-)@R$(-)@ thats my name ...!!!! or some name like "Jo Hua So Hua... Lelo Saaman Aur Chalo Goa..." or "DON" or "۞๑DINESHPAPPAN๑۞ ♥ ♥". Gasp! Grow up, folks!
Spellllllll check! - I don't mandate people who write these nifty scraps in my scrapbook to be journalists. But grant me the permission to skin them alive when they write complete nonsense. Here are some teasers, steaming hot from this morning's scrapbook
" Hiur name is nice just as U.u r really looking sooo cute if u weared white dress in that pic U will definetely look like an angel.maintain that physic as long as possible.very looking nice gas which i never see this much of beauty in this world.hai ,shal v fight for while,plzzz naa,maatlaadukundhaam raa first kavalante tarwatha kottukundham.gichukundham,sare naaa,have a nice evening.happy week end my dear. bybye.HAPPY CHRISTMAS"
Fight, we shall! Where's that darn sword?!
"hi how ru i wana now more about can u chat wid me"
Nope, I don't wana chat wid u until you run your text through a spell checker.
"hi babe biryani ckana chal ne ka kya ? "
Err, no thanks. I just lost my appetite.
ASCII art - In spite of this blog being titled so, I'm not too fond of finding half page long "art" on my scrapbook. Like this one -
Whoever you are, thanks for the compliment. Don't sue me when you turn diabetic.
The picture - The profile picture is supposed to depict you. Or what you're trying to convey. Or your interests. What am I supposed to understand if I see a picture of a shirtless Salman Khan? Or Sharukh Khan wearing expensive glasses? Or Aishwarya Rai? Or a fat, drooling baby?
The emails - This causes all the excruciating pain. Not only do our Orkutters scrap cryptic text, they also send mails. A lot of mails. From a lot of people.
Mails like
"Hi...i just happnd to see ur pic in the chess community...so jus decided to take a look at your profile.
Quite coincidentally we share birthdays other than our interest for chess."
Quite coincidental indeed! And the best part? We both live on the same planet! How cool is that?
Bottom-line - before sending obnoxious mails/teasers, ask yourself if you would send something similar to your boss and still keep your job. If the answer is yes, shoot a mail. And hey, the spell checker rule holds here too.
Folks who read this ought to understand that it isn't Orkut that I'm bashing here. I love the site. For all those who now think "If you have so much against it, why don't you delete your account?". Again, I really like Orkut. I can do well without a bunch of sexually deprived, desperate jerks hounding my scrapbook. I have made some fabulous friends at Orkut, shared photography tips, found missing school friends and scrapped away when bored. Like a friend says, you could call me an Orkut veteran. Just stay away when I'm in a bad mood like today.
Just like most other people in my age group who have access to computers and a decent Internet connection, I have an Orkut account. If I remember correctly, I have had it for about two years now. What started out to be this elite, by-invitation-only access where you'd find fellow geeks and nerds, proliferated into a site where even my little cousin sister has an account and hence knows all my friends, what they scrapped today and the testimonials they wrote.
Of course, that is a good problem to have. The other not-so-nice side? On an average, I get about 15 scraps a day from folks I don't know. I'm only happy with the profound love and affection these unknown folks have for me. If only it made sense. Why, oh, why can't people write in a language that I can grok?
There's a lot in a name - A lot of Orkut names sound like a riddle to me. So much that when one of them tries sending me a friend request or a scrap, I need to pull out a pencil to decipher the name. It is always some GoDfAtheR or ♥♥♥ अिनष ♥♥♥ a²+b²-m²+c²-h²+k² or DeviL$$EyE### or (-)@R$(-)@ thats my name ...!!!! or some name like "Jo Hua So Hua... Lelo Saaman Aur Chalo Goa..." or "DON" or "۞๑DINESHPAPPAN๑۞ ♥ ♥". Gasp! Grow up, folks!
Spellllllll check! - I don't mandate people who write these nifty scraps in my scrapbook to be journalists. But grant me the permission to skin them alive when they write complete nonsense. Here are some teasers, steaming hot from this morning's scrapbook
" Hiur name is nice just as U.u r really looking sooo cute if u weared white dress in that pic U will definetely look like an angel.maintain that physic as long as possible.very looking nice gas which i never see this much of beauty in this world.hai ,shal v fight for while,plzzz naa,maatlaadukundhaam raa first kavalante tarwatha kottukundham.gichukundham,sare naaa,have a nice evening.happy week end my dear. bybye.HAPPY CHRISTMAS"
Fight, we shall! Where's that darn sword?!
"hi how ru i wana now more about can u chat wid me"
Nope, I don't wana chat wid u until you run your text through a spell checker.
"hi babe biryani ckana chal ne ka kya ? "
Err, no thanks. I just lost my appetite.
ASCII art - In spite of this blog being titled so, I'm not too fond of finding half page long "art" on my scrapbook. Like this one -
Whoever you are, thanks for the compliment. Don't sue me when you turn diabetic.
The picture - The profile picture is supposed to depict you. Or what you're trying to convey. Or your interests. What am I supposed to understand if I see a picture of a shirtless Salman Khan? Or Sharukh Khan wearing expensive glasses? Or Aishwarya Rai? Or a fat, drooling baby?
The emails - This causes all the excruciating pain. Not only do our Orkutters scrap cryptic text, they also send mails. A lot of mails. From a lot of people.
Mails like
"Hi...i just happnd to see ur pic in the chess community...so jus decided to take a look at your profile.
Quite coincidentally we share birthdays other than our interest for chess."
Quite coincidental indeed! And the best part? We both live on the same planet! How cool is that?
Bottom-line - before sending obnoxious mails/teasers, ask yourself if you would send something similar to your boss and still keep your job. If the answer is yes, shoot a mail. And hey, the spell checker rule holds here too.
Folks who read this ought to understand that it isn't Orkut that I'm bashing here. I love the site. For all those who now think "If you have so much against it, why don't you delete your account?". Again, I really like Orkut. I can do well without a bunch of sexually deprived, desperate jerks hounding my scrapbook. I have made some fabulous friends at Orkut, shared photography tips, found missing school friends and scrapped away when bored. Like a friend says, you could call me an Orkut veteran. Just stay away when I'm in a bad mood like today.
Posted by Aarthi Ramamurthy at
11:08 PM
20 Comments:
:) you seem to be in a very bad mood today Aarthi....
chess community? Sorry not interested....
Jokes apart, a nice post even in bad mood...
Personally I feel social networking sites like Orkut does help geeks like us to stay in touch with our non-geeky pals...
I did visit your orkut profile but avoided leaving a scrap entry as it might motivate you for yet another blog post :)
apologies for any typos/spelling errors :)
way to go.
haha well at times you know some of us who just need a good read can stumble on a lovely blog such as yours. However the anger you express is rather amusing as i know what it is to be subjected to this torture all the time (cousins a girl). Guys have it easier though, just the request and you can deny.
However sometimes a person/profile does come along where it's interesting and you glance a certain bonding (non carnal connotations only) where you would like to drop in a hello nice blog you got here etc. :).
What? You love orkut? One of the crappiest piece of hosted software that google has it on the cloud. I have no clue why it is still popular with Indians and Brazilians, Its one of those web2.0's viral networking pheonomenon gone worse..
I hate it, I hate it, But still end up using it :(..
Hmm...worst of orkut...Allow me to narrate an incident. One morning a colleague comes upto me and asks how to deal with orkut, whom to contact on orkut etc. Upon probing, he said, somebody had put a female friend's cell number on her scrapbook. She was quite taken aback upon getting the first obscene call, but when her phone did not stop ringing and spewing out obscenities, she decided that she'd had enough. Given the taboo associated with police in general, cyber cell was turned down by her parents (even though this friend of mine and a few other softies tried hard to persuade her parents to lodge a complaint with cybercell.) She did the most logical thing at that point, changed her cell number (somebody had even tried to track her residence based on her cell number it seems.) I was amazed yet realised that you are just one scrap away from the "friendly" anti-social element.
===sexually deprived, desperate jerks hounding my scrapbook=========
Only in India girls like an effiminate shy guy. In other countries these jerks are called players and it is quite normal to hit on an unknown girl. But in India forget about it if you are too brash and forward.
@Anonymous: It's one thing to be a 'player' and hit on women and another to send out disgusting, annoying emails. The trouble arises when people don't know the difference.
At the most fundamental level, respect for any other individual and his/her perception, opinion (and email space!) is necessary.
If the only means of playing is sending emails like "Hi!!! Wnna b frds?? Me 2 like pizza and coke!", forget about it!
Nice article about Orkut.
As it happens, I do not know many of my net friends well enough to introduce them to my real friends.
So somehow do not like the idea of my real friends getting bothered with my net friends.
But there are some good things about orkut i guess for it to be popular among many people.
haha after reading that.. just wanted to say its nice..
and you left out the 'tons of senseless messages(read spam) that we receive in orkut asking us to join some money making program or to join some yet-another-community-for-morons... and deleting them all a big daunting task... phew!!!
aarthy,
i think there is a fundamental difference in the ways guys and girls look at orkut. from my experience so far, whether its online on orkut or offline in the real world, its always the guy who would come up and shout up a sassy line... hehehe.. thats our constitutional make up. with orkut, guys sitting in delhi or berlin have a chance to hit on you, which would have otherwise been the sole privilege of the guys in your neighbourhood or at work ....
this is just an extension ...
arun
LOL... hit the nail right on the head there!
I saw the guys scrapping you on orkut. For some reason you seem to be getting a lot of these scraps (well, atleast more than the people whom i know ) My suggestion: Get another account in orkut, helpful.
Very well written!!
The funny part is that you dont even get spared when you have a profile pic of yours with your son and husband !
Hi aarthi.. Is it just the bad mood or something else?
Well, I do agree how it can be frustrating for people (especially girls) to get a lot of crappy messages in their scrapbook and mailbox, but is it such a big problem?
I mean, orkut is after all a place to 'socialize' as they call it.. and yes, you did make some fabulous friends on orkut, and scrapped away when bored - that's perhaps what the people who scrapped you are looking to do too.. with not so good spelling and grammar, of course.. so does that make them 'sexually deprived, desperate jerks'? :)
Okay, I visit someone's profile, and find it genuinely interesting. He/she is not a close friend of my close friend, so i have no direct way to introduce myself. So what do I do? mention common interests/community and maybe ask if he/she likes to be a friend. Is that an unpardonable mistake? I can understand what you're saying, but it was just a doubt that I had :) No, maybe it was just your bad mood that day :)
qcscome on arthi, coinciding birthdays are not that common unless it's fabricated to support a cause of hitting on you!! But ofcourse, it's orkut.
:)
Thank you very much for sharing your thoughts. It is always great pleasure to read your posts.
Aarthi
Curse it or praise it
Orkut Rulez
I Hav found so many of my cousin brothers /frnds thrgh orkut
All tht I knew of them was their name n nothing else
Orkut is a marvellous place for this
Though I curse it every day I still end up using it n updating ma prof
Sorry for the uniq orkut teminology
Hey, We 'cheapgundas' are 3 guys from Bangalore. This is our 2nd video.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8dHuEYCcOS8
Looks like you have been agonised by "Orkut Despo dudes"
Are you sick n tired of "fraandships" requests from despos in Orkut?
Do you get messages like:
"Hey babes I am a kool dude wid hot looks"
"Ur hairs is beutiffull, I am in luv instant."
"Life is a garden to be filled wid rozes of love friends"
"So lets friendship??"
Who are these despo guys and why do they do this?
Find the answer -
Watch our Video and Listen to the message carefully at the end ;)
'Orkut Despos-The agony of Babes'
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8dHuEYCcOS8
Orkut in itself gets boring after a point...:)
"very looking nice gas which i never see this much of beauty in this world"
Lol. Classic.
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