What's in a WhatsApp?

I hate whatsapp.

Whatsapp in itself is mishmash. Corrupted.  A short, sweet, social civility, a friendly enquiry, stolen and twisted. Worse when you think of the iconic question so popularised by Bugs Bunny with an insouciant, nonchalant attitude, chewing on a carrot, “What’s up, Doc?” And in its original form, “what’s up?” In fact “wassapp” would have been a better corruption.

The name itself asks a couple of questions. What is the application? What application? Is it what sapp (as in sapping)? If it is what’s app, what happened to the apostrophe? So when we use it are we seeking answers about the application or about our own enquiries? Search me.

This application is not even a full decade old. But it has invaded and overpowered us. Internet by itself has taken away many pleasurable activities from us. Now this so called app has actually gone worse and made us totally worthless. Every technology is expected to improve our lives. Life is supposed to be made easier. But not whatsapp. It certainly does not. Why?

Whatsapp has taken everybody down to the pits of ignorance through laziness and inactivity. Internet has reduced our reading habit. Forget books, we stopped buying news papers for news is available on the net. The charm of reading the paper every day morning is gone. Short messaging service ruined our language, in totality. No grammar or syntax at all. In email, one had to type in words. The brilliance of SMS style of writing into email, took it down to dirty depths. Even official correspondence began using unpleasant and unknown short forms of words. People had the audacity to write even a job application, what to talk of internal ones like leave application, in such an obnoxious fashion. My God, what’s up?

In all this, people forgot how to use pen and paper. With the advent of credit/debit cards there is a feeling that one need not carry cash. Similarly with a phone in hand, there is no need to jot down anything. Just load it on to the phone, which has gradually gone on to be ‘smart phone’.

Personal interaction among people has almost become non-existent. Even a friendly enquiry about the way or route to a location has become redundant due to the phone’s ability to direct you, albeit very unintelligently. There are enough jokes doing the rounds about people thumbing on their smart phones even while dating or at a family dinner at home. While travelling, while walking on the road, worse while crossing the road, while waiting for a bus or a cab, at no time can one be without looking down on to the phone screen. What’s up, man?

That is as if they are utilising every second of their life productively. They are ignorant of their surroundings and are proud of it. What is there in my surroundings? I have much important things to do! See people with earphones stuck into their ears. Important things. Never mind if you do not hear a car honking while you are crossing the road. That ridiculous, meaningless, bawdy song is what is important. Enough and more has been said about people driving and being busy on the phone. How ridiculous you look with a phone stuck between your tilted head and the shoulder while riding a bike. Or riding with one hand on the bar and looking down and reading the message on the phone held in the other? You are liable for the accident that another driver may get into, because of the inattentive turn you may take. I give such people a wide berth on the road. What’s going on, I say?

But I digress. It was about whatsapp. This whatsapp is part of all of the above and many more as your imagination or the vast knowledge about the application that might allow you. Whatsapp has shrunk even the ‘sms’ing to practically nought. Jokes and cartoons have gone around in whatsapp itself showing it as ‘garbage in garbage out’. Forwarding is the worst part of whatsapp. Whatever trash you receive you feel duty bound to forward to others. To enable that, groups are formed. Groups are supposed to be of like-minded people. The app is to be used to exchange information as specific to the group and engage in productive discussion on the relevant topics. It irritates me no end when teeny-weeny teenagers send me quotations mostly of the Pinterest variety about character building, positive thinking, creating happiness, bringing up children, good living, healthy living etc. It is abominable. I would like to slap them.

This wonderful activity of forwarding (which is lately restricted to only five at a time and that too is total fraud) has disabled your thinking too. You don’t know what you receive as some great and important info, is right or wrong. But since you want to be important and project as knowledgeable to all and sundry on your ‘smart phone’ you simply ‘forward’ it. Up till the recent past some used take anticipatory bail by saying ‘forwarded as received’ but now I think, to be absolved of  any unpleasant incident, whatsapp itself has started labelling a forward as ‘forwarded’ on its own. That’s again fraud and immaterial. Total bullshit. You are a popular guy and are in a host of groups of all kinds and so you do this most intelligent and interesting activity of forwarding and so does each and every one who is on your whatsapp contact list. That’s what I think should be called ‘loaded’! Leading by forwarding jokes, whatsapp has become a joke in itself!

I found myself quite busy deleting the messages, photos or images, graphic interchange formats, videos and what not, all before even taking a proper look at them, because I receive them in multitudes. Sometimes I delete immediately depending on who has forwarded! I know their intellectual capability, even in forwarding. The irritating part is, even such deletions occupy a lot of time! I found in some groups, some friends in permanent slumber after some initial brouhaha. So I asked them “what’s up” on their personal number and they said something heart warming. They said that they were fed up and decided to keep quiet! So there are such people. My faith in humanity is maintained.

Before this cancer of whatsapp began gnawing our innards, at least one had to press some buttons on the phone to send a message, even on Blackberry which was touted and shown off as the ultimate at one point of time in gadget history. But now, you just select and hit the forward button or press or just thumb whatever it is that you do to forward, without even knowing what is that you are forwarding or to whom you are forwarding. It is absolute intellectual poverty. It is parting with the brain. There is no contribution by value addition by anyone in the chain. I, very often feel like squelching this high wattage spreading of knowledge by the dolt of a sender to me, which was received from some other clown, with none of any one’s penmanship, by reacting violently. Nobody has the patience or interest to check the veracity, by Googling what else, of the nonsense being forwarded.

Now it is such mindless forwarding of unverified messages that creates social problems. Receiving and forwarding of whatsapp messages has become an addiction. If you don’t receive something or other for some time, you are upset. As soon as you receive, you must forward, to be one up on the recipients. That’s how fraudulent messages get circulated. This human folly, this contagiousness, this lack of application of thought is what is taken advantage of by unsocial elements and criminals. You know the results. It is diabolic. The unscrupulous can turn any good intention, any good invention, why, anything good in general, into something very sinister. Then asking “What’s up?” doesn’t help.

Then there are those who think they are into Indian heritage, Indian history and all that mysterious about India and want to educate you. So far so good. But when it comes to testing your intelligence and IQ by sending you wonky quizzes proclaiming that only the very intelligent can answer, they forget that all the quizzes and answers are all in the net. The answers can be found in a jiffy by googling. Some gullible fall for this test. Some others google and send the answers instantly as proof of their intelligence. It takes all kinds! What is there to be one up on whatsapp?

When close friends and relatives tell me that they are so busy with whatsapp that they find time for nothing else and that reading whatsapp is more than enough for them, then they get my goat. Whatsapp is enough as a reading (as in READING) material? All the writers dead and buried would turn in their graves. Even Bugs Bunny, if he comes to know, will lose his cool for which he is famous! It is honestly catastrophic, this decadency! Especially, when they tell me all that when I ask them to procure and read my modest book of poetry or to read my modest blogs, both of which are so relaxing (I say so myself) and which can easily be done, a few minutes at a time.

I hate whatsapp.