Sum-off deleted his Digital Rants. It was another one of his masterpiece. Maybe Bhauju read it and voted the thread out of this island, or perhaps he had another miserly impulse. Either ways I enjoyed writing my thoughts on sum off's digital rantings.
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In every party, you can't help noticing people scurrying along to get their snaps taken. It's like an obsession. I've seen some people who have the urge to be in front of camera no matter whose camera it is. Why would you want to be in a group photo of some strangers? When you look at an album, there is always this one person who's in almost every picture. And the funny part is they have the same expression in every photo! Even the angle in which they pose tend to be the same in every picture. It seems as if one photo was superimposed over all the other photos with different people in different places.

Isn't a camera supposed to capture moments instead of capturing the person's plastic smiles? Every person seems to have mastered one particular position or stance for the camera. Everytime they see a camera, they try to emulate their special camera stance. Some slightly open their mouth with a little slant. Some tilt their head to a certain degree. Some pout their lips. No matter what they were doing, as soon as they see a camera in front of them, their psychosomatic camera pose takes over slightly quivering their lips to get the lips aligned into the mastered pose. And if you're bald or going a little bald, your fingers unconsciously move to the head inadvertently to brush those existing hair into place to try to cover the bald spots.

I have a friend who always wants to have his arm around someone else when taking pictures. Another friend always wants to be in the middle position front row whenever taking group photos. Another one always has his mouth open with tongue sticking out. One growing trend is the fingers positioning. From everyone in their teens t o possibly upto their 30s who grew up with any gangsta rap, hip hop influence will position their fingers with few fingers slightly bent. Only about 10% of those would know what it stood for. Some older people will give a V victory sign in every picture. They're too old for gangsta signs but too young to not express anything with thier fingers.

Why would someone be obsessed with having their pictures taken? Perhaps an evidence to show others that one is having a fun filled life? If one really needs approval from others to feel complete then maybe a trip to the shrink is in order. Perhaps just plain narcissism.

Whatever it is, say Cheers for now!

I think it will be fun to point out some Digital Narcissist Extraordinaires in some of the event photos here.

Bhaley, I saw Sum_off's post earlier and I left that read for today...but earlier I just couldn't find it anymore.  Sum_off's among the best writers (Nepali and Non-Nepali) whose works I've read and could relate to but surely there is something going on in his life thats only for him to know and for us to find out.  BTW, Nice work above...True dat about the posing in front of cameras.  I guess being narcissitic about one's looks/position in life/family back-ground, etc. is just a plain human trait and that my friend is something that cannot be lost so easily.

I saw that this afternoon and planned to read later more freely and now it's gone . 

 uff I missed it

RatoBhaley ,

 thanx atleast I can read a part of that.

"No matter what they were doing, as soon as they see a camera in front of them, their psychosomatic camera pose takes over slightly quivering their lips to get the lips aligned into the mastered pose. "

 

oohh is it deleted.....you mean its worthless trying to exhume Sums_Off's digital rant.........didn't read it earlier this afternoon and thought it would be my fodder for tonight and now its gone  see this is one of the setbacks of granting privilege to sajha users to edit/delete one's thread (i mean it in a good way though ) .......feel like ranting on San LOL

I was one of the readers. It was great. Obviously, there were some direct references, which might have caused this vote out. Anyway I had enjoyed the piece and it was so realistic.

Lucky you!!  Us 3 above obviously missed it!  Well, lets hope it comes back again.

 Samsara I hope that too.

Well, it was a pleasure  to read that article  this afternoon and now it's equally a displeasure  to know that it's been deleted.  Actually I was the first one to comment it.  

I don't why he deleted the article... snap post....... snap delete. The write-up was outstanding but I am not sure about the writer. I am sorry, forgive me.

 

Sum_Off
I hope you read this :)
Another post that had made my dreary monday afternoon a ticklishly funny one!! musu hasu ki...galalalala parum bhaako thio :).
I personally hate those camera happy folks.....aleek angle milayera khicheypo ramro dekhthio but then my excuse has always been I am not photogenic so most of the time I am left alone to photosynthesize ;).

There is other side of the coin too.

No matter how much we make fun of people who love to have their photos taken, at the end of the day we love looking at photos. Look at one of the most popular Nepali site cybersansar.com. The only reason it's popular is because of the model photos. Look at ramjham.com and see the number of hits on photos. That site has nothing but photos and there are few thousand people looking at god knows how many photos every day.

I guess there is a reason why digital cameras are popular and that is because the general population loves to see pictures. Now that there are hundreds of public sites to share picture albums such as hi5, myspace, facebook, etc, there is more reason for people to take pictures. The more their profiles get viewed the more the general user feels empowered. My sad entry into the social networking scene ended when my profile received 57 views in 6 months. Some of the friends request I sent didn't even get accepted. One of my cousin sisters has received over 2 thousand views in as little as three months. This confirms the fact that males are discriminated against in the world of social networking. I am guilty of this too. When I have absolutely nothing to do. I sometimes log into my hi5 and check out my ever expanding network of friends. The number of my friends remain constant at 7 but it's a nice feeling to know that my network is constantly increasing. I feel a sense of popularity. It never ceases to amaze me how many hot girls are in these social networking sites. One could waste a lot of time just browsing through the network of friends and checking out some hotties.

I was so happy few days back to see that my profile got viewed by this arab girl who was stunningly hot. I had butterflies flying in my stomach. I even held my breath when i clicked on her photo to go to her profile. She had few more photos and I was filled with romantic notion of dating a hot arab chic. I didn't care whether she had operations to restore her virginity or not. But my short day dream came crashing when the profile description read "I have stopped updating my profile, click here to vising my website" - which when I clicked ended up being some semi-porn site - it looked semi porn I didn't have the enthusiasm to find out if it was fully porn. Damn spammers. These damn spammers get into everything. I even got spammed from my well intended matrimonial entry in sajha. Ms. Bertrice Okorie from Nigeria wrote her family fortune was stuck in the bank account held by her expired father who used to work for Tsa Tsu Ngong who was the Prime minister for 15 years before being deposed by Umaru Yar'adua. She asked me to be her savior and help her transfer 35 million US dollars to my bank account. All my correspondence was to contain the reference number (VE/S/09/99). How organized a woman she must be? She'll have all my apartment in order when she gets here I thought.  I thanked my stars at my luck. I've been working all my life to hit that million dollar mark but my bank account had always fallen behind by two measly zeros. But finally my dream was coming true. Further communication with Bertrice revealed she needed me to send her all my personal details including bank account as well as a deposit of initial $200 as a sign of goodwill and to cover the cost of the final whopping 35 million dollar deposit. After few coordial exchanges of emails, I decided I was tired of yanking her chain so I went on to delete my matrimonial profile. Such a stupid move, I mean trying to be friendly with a damn spammer.

Talking of stupid, two actors in Angola got shot recently by the police. The ill-fated actors were acting their part in a movie where they were supposed to be robbers. Unfortunately for them, couple of real angolian policemen saw them and shot them point blank thinking they were real robbers. I'm having trouble deciding whether the movie director was stupid or the policemen.

Loving the extended holiday vacation. Have a good one folks.