The following video has already been viewed 3.2 million times on YouTube, so it hardly needs a link from me. But what the hell, it’s funny:
Penn Masala have a new CD out, and they were recently featured on NPR. But why do I have the feeling that they will now be best known — and beloved — by college students everywhere for “The Facebook Skit”?
what happens if it’s a girl poking a girl…maybe all they want is friendship but the whole idea of ‘poking’ online is strange. i’m sure it’s slang for shagging (uk slang)
pre-emptive bubble burst. nice.
lesssbianism, its a san fransisco treat
Poking is more than likely a evolution of the old ‘fingering’ command on Unix systems which would allow you to see when a user had been last on the system. People used to write little tags with their identities, etc… and you could read them. It was fun back in the late 80s and earlier 90s to finger people because you might also ‘chat’ with them if they were online. Also you could see if people had gotten online to read their email, if you had sent them one. Back in those days, people didn’t check email for weeks at a time!
This social networks are exhibiting interesting behavior as they become more complex.
Also I find the exchange between Nala and Jason Bourne to be very revealing how different the college social scene is for male and female desi(s).
Jason Bourne, that is creepy. That would be creepy even if you did it when the Facebook was still a “small” network of a few colleges.
Sona, these are people who don’t know you?
I actually am not bothered by the lack of distinction among “friends” online — if you’re my “real” friend I probably email/call you on a regular basis. If you’re a facebook friend I don’t. Nothing complicated.
I love the Masala boys. I took my parents to go see them in CA a few years ago, and they were charmed. I definitely got a, “Beta, where are the singing boys like this at your school?” 🙂
yes, it was fun. i went to get popcorn to settle in and read some more, but apparently Jason Bourne has left the thread. pch! somebody else please say something outrageous so we can disagree with you … ha ha, ok, just kidding. back to work.
Sona you are cute as a button, but regardless – some people online will poke/message/etc. you regardless. It’s what my friend calls “playing the coefficient”. Contact enough people, whether you think you have a chance or not, and one of them should pan out. It’s like on the matrimonials websites, when you get messaged by someone who doesn’t match what you’ve explicitly stated you are looking for. “I’m only looking for men in the NJ/NY area.” “Hi, I live in Yaddayaddanagar in Texas.”
And no, I’m not a Sona-stalker. She’s my friend in real life.
I however am a Fuerza stalker. As are half the boys on the East Coast ;).
Playing the coefficient. I love it and may have to use it again and again.
And to answer Camille, they definitely don’t know me. I tend to get confused though and think they may have been a family friend or someone I knew from Sikh camp (yes, like band camp) and then I look at their profile and voila….they are not.
Has Sepia ever looked at networking pattnerns of desis on facebook or myspace? How many desi pride groups there are or other cultural afficionado based sites? That might be interesting, though I have a feeling there would be less Tagore and more Shah Rukh Khan.
I actually don’t think this is much bigger than anyone else who identifies with an ethnic/affinity group 🙂
Sona that is annoying as sin. Usually when random people friend me I’m related to them in some way, but I don’t recognize them because it’s been so long since we’ve seen each other!
As or the stalking component, I remember being at college and a family friend was in the same class as me. We hadn’t seen each other for a few years, but were spending a lot of time together since the class. She was like a kid sister to me. One day she told me about this note that had been left on her car window. This Indian guy had written how he had seen her on campus and was too shy to approach her, but wanted to take her out. We discussed it and I said if she was curious she should meet him in a public place, etc… they ended up getting married and having 3 kids. The entire time at their reception at some Indian restaurant in Fairfax about 12 years ago, couldn’t stop grinning cause it was so funny when people would ask in conversation if anyone knew how they met.
LOL! Oh Jason Bourne, you’re so odd and creepy yet you feel misunderstood. Will you be my facebook friend?
I’m joking, so don’t get your manties in a twist. Really, though, I found it hilarious that yours was the the first post on this thread and instead of laughing at the joke you could actually relate. Of course we all get that the concept of these friendstermyspacefacebook sites is slightly stalkerish in itself since you can be ‘viewing’ a person at any given moment in the day while people are doing the same to you.
And why is the fact that your lonely male friend is a Patel relevant? You can accuse a Patel of a lot of things, but ‘stalker’ doesn’t ring any bells.
its like some combination of Patel Motel and Norman Bates..
Join the Sepia Mutiny group on facebook if you haven’t already :0)
LOL! Let’s get the admins to add the facebook link next to the friendster link. hehe. that way more innocent sepia/facebook users can be poked by Jason and come to this post to complain. hehhehehe. ok, may be that’s lame.
hi i am sweet indian guy wid lots of hobbies like dancing, partying 4 fun. wanna make frenship wid me???
OMG, Puli, my high school band teacher too. That’s really weird.
(There were also public incidents involving the gym teacher and the journalism teacher… yeah, it was quite a school.)
wow…a lot of messed up band practice….
its like some combination of Patel Motel and Norman Bates..
Damn you, Puliogre! You always have to find a connection, don’t you? Guess I walked right into that Six Degrees of Patel Motel trap…
yeah…everything is connected to gujju motel owners.
is stalking inherently creepy? why should j-bourne be criticized for being mesmerized by a pretty face? back in college i was stalked. it didn’t really bother me and i actually wouldve liked it if the girl was cute.
Are all botanists stalkers?
are all those who appreciate natural beauty, botanists?
what is the sound of one hand….err..never mind.
Never heard of Penn Masala. But amusing. BTW, salon has linked to sepiamutiny on this.
salon link to sepiamutiny
I think we’re each using different understandings of the term “stalked.” Yes, stalking is inherently creepy and illustrates a lack of understanding around boundaries.
Serious posts about the political crisis in Pakistan ==> very few comments
Funny YouTube videos ==> link from Andrew Leonard at Salon.com
Oh well. Guess that’s how the Internet works.
I havent had a chance to watch the video, but I wanted to share my 2 cents on this so called stalking.
I get invites from people who I might or not have known to add as a friend. Given my hotness factor, I am not used to any kind of unwarranted attention. One fine day I figured out that, these people send mass invites to all their contacts or something – gmail is a real culprit. It was so funny, when a girl who literally looked through me one evening added me as a friend the same night. It happened with both orkut and facebook, so I figured its just bad requetiquette.
facebook is too …complicated. i wonder how the amrikans manage to run thru it! peanut butter stuck on the roof of the mouth freaks them out and this doesn’t 😛
this side of the world (GMT + 5:30) ..yea in the ‘motherland’ orkut rules. And it’s an even bigger disaster when it comes to privacy. any Jason Bourne can check out any Nala’s profile. numerous cases of cyber-stalking thru orkut in the media! orkut shows the last 5 people to visit your profile …which is most often a motley group of potential stalkers and any Rahul, Suresh or HotRod4U can write on your scrapbook with a fraaandship request!! facebook’s catching up in india too primarily b’coz the cool amrikan friends/ex-classmates/cousins are on fb and not orkut. but then as a friend had this gyaan-ful lesson as his status msg – “fb sux! u can’t browse profiles of random chicks …bah!”
as for Jason’s case, y’all are treating him like an outcast for speaking out his mind. what he says is normal behavior among guys ..in US and more so in India. girlies, if that freaks u out, hear this – there is a very distinct possibility that ur dear bhaiya or lovey-dovey bf/hubby has done the same at some point of time. Yes – the level of poking varies from person to person.
get real!
another brown theory of relative standards. i’m not as bad as the guy who is worse than me. so it must be ok.
stop scaring me!
I know it was written way up there, but Re: Raagapella. My brother is in that group and they recently had a couple concerts with A. R. Rahman and Sukhwinder Singh, so they’re doing all right. As far as them vs. Penn Masala, I haven’t heard too much of Penn Masala so I can’t compare them, but I think Raagapella does a pretty good job. Some of their stuff is on youtube so you can check that out
Arjun – joint concerts with A.R. Rahman and Sukhwinder Singh?! goddamn…
not really. i’ve met a lot of my brown male friends at college (including my boyfriend), and none of them are stalkers. they’re normal. i guess this does depend on where you go to school and where the general student body is from/where the desis are from though. but only slightly so.
um, no. i’m aware that lots of people look at strangers’ profiles, walls, pictures, etc. – but i have never known anyone pathetic enough to 1) look up facebook groups to find out who the supposedly hottest girls on campus were (instead of using his own eyes and/or dick), 2) message and poke complete strangers, or 3) literally stalk girls (as in the case of Jason Bourne’s friends.)
umm, agreed with Camille… I think you seriously misunderstand what ‘stalking’ is, and how scary it can really be. Good on you for being able to shrug off your own ‘stalker,’ but um, again, I think you really don’t understand it if you’re hoping that the girl had been cute instead.
you’re right, why do i bother… oh right, because i’m home for break and bored out of my mind. maybe i should be spending more time on facebook instead.
Amardeep, why not invite LeftyProf? I’m sure you two will have a very interesting conversation. :p 😀
I doubt if it’s the Internet. It’s us humans and what (we think) touches us more directly.
Qualification: Internet does play some part in the direction taken by a “conversation.”
Related: here is my favourite facebook-stalking joke.
Yes Nala exactly you’re proving a point to me which I didn’t actually articulate in the earlier comment. There are cliques of different levels of social hierarchy in the desi college scene.
15 years ago, people of brown color were given the benefit of the doubt in meeting, something I mentioned in this thread during another post. Further back, I remember my parents getting excited about meeting other Indians when we first moved to DC Metro area in 1980.
Of course, you’re referring to the act of un-solicited attention from males on Facebook. It’s still interesting that it’s beginning to exhibit the more complex nature of person to person social interactions with sub-divisions into smaller groups.
As for your boyfriend and male friends, I’m sure they don’t masturbate either. 🙂
umm, agreed with Camille… I think you seriously misunderstand what ‘stalking’ is, and how scary it can really be.
I just think he had used the wrong word.
Lion, they don’t masturbate for the fear of losing their eyes 🙂
Also I think ‘facebook stalking’ kinda waters down what stalking really is
I think we were pretty harsh on Jason here, some people like to meet new people in life , some don’t. Thats the case with social networks as well. I frequently scrap strangers on Orkut if i like a good photo they’ve put , or something funny they’ve written in their profile. Though it helps to find a statement such as ‘like to make friends’ in their profile.Also my scraps are genuine messages of appreciation/questions rather than just friend requests.
This i don’t consider stalking. Going on & googling about them would be stalking ?
This i don’t consider stalking. Going on & googling about them would be stalking
Stalking implies contact, whether through emails, letters, verbal, etc… these “pokes” or whatever, are borderline. Everything else is surely wasted effort, but not stalking.
HMF:
Are you sure about that? 🙂
once, someone used google to find out who “puli” was, and got in touch with me off line…
Hilarious!
Sad thing is, that is really the TRUE FACE of modern day youth.
It’s happening people. Aren’t you glad you’re past 30?
hey, HEY! no hating on 20 something, and something teen mutaneers.
People, I don’t think Jason Bourne is “stalking” in the traditional creepy sense. He and his friend just checked out people on Facebook and attempted to see them in real life. What is the difference between that and seeing some cute guy you like in class or wherever and then following him discreetly for a few minutes to see where he hangs out so that you can “accidently” bump into him at some later point in time and hopefully strike up a conversation to get to know him more?
What is Facebook for if not for meeting people?
That being said, I’m still glad I’m in my 30’s.
masturbation is normal. messaging girls you have no connection to through facebook or standing outside their place of residence watching them–why, hoping that they’ll fall at your feet and fawn all over you?–is not.
though i have to admit, my first reaction when we see the vaseline bit in the linked video was, “ew!” that was the merging of normal and creepy. 😛