There’s news and then there’s this. On the morning of January 27th (IST), social media sites Facebook and Instagram stopped working (from a period of 30 minutes to an hour, reports vary).When asked about what had happened, God of 1.25 human beings and CEO of Facebook, Mark Zuckerburg asked his worshippers not to worry and that Facebook would be up and running soon. However, since “internal updates and changes’ sounds like an extremely boring reason, this newly minted blogger has decided to go on a journey to the Land of No Return, the Virtual World, to find out what really happened.
APOCALYPSE NOW
In a dilapidated house in the Nebrasakan desert, an even more dilapidated duo (unfortunately) named John and Sarah Connor finally prepared to fulfill their legacy and battle the forces of Skynet. “We knew this was going to happen”, says an extremely grim faced Sarah when questioned,” but we didn’t expect them to strike in such a brutal manner.” She briefly turns to her laptop to refresh her Facebook page, but it’’s stuck at the same message “”. Mr Connor is glued to his phone, desperately trying to activate his feed. “There’s this mould in my room that looks EXACTLY like Elvis. I just need to upload that and then I’m ready for war.”
Around the world, sightings have been reported of groups of individuals shuffling down streets with a sheaf of papers between their hands, asking random passersby to ‘Like their photos’ and ‘Join their Group’. When stopped, some break down crying. “I thought the apocalypse was supposed to be in 2012. I just want to update my status and let people know how I’m feeling. Is that too much to ask ?,” says Facebook user Mr. AskMeWhatI’mFeeling.
Opinions among virtual media aficionados differ. Videogamers in particular, have adopted a ‘told you so’ attitude. As Mr Halo4ever put it,” Dude, it’s like, Black Hawk Down over Facebook down and Instagram down any day.” Ha ha I suppose.
COMING BACK TO EARTH
Parents everywhere were surprised to see their children emerging from their rooms and some have taken this as an opportunity to finally get the laundry done. “I can’t believe this day has finally arrived. Thank God I didn’t have to throw that expensive computer out of the window for it to happen.”Others took their children outside. Thankfully, no fatalities due to overexposure to the sun have been reported.
However, nervous breakdowns were reported in many restaurants as people were unable to upload pictures of the food they were eating. Apparently some resorted to running around asking everyone to “double-tap” the item in question. One can only hope that this statement wasn’t misconstrued.
TWITTERMANIA
Twitter finally had it’s moment in the sun, with social media desperados everywhere flocking to the website to get their 140 characters across. There was a sharp increase in the number of account holders as junkies turned to their last source for a fix. Since the Gods were feeling slightly merciful, the website did not crash. #FacebookDown and #InstagramDown were trending topics for the rest of the day. (So-called) celebrities from across the Internet pitched in with their usual brand of (questionable) humor. The more bearable ones have been pictorially represented below.
AN UNCERTAIN FUTURE
Right now, there is only one thing that is certain. Clearly, the world is unequipped to deal with a disaster of this magnitude. Like the annoying kid who always volunteers first in class, America has assumed the mantle of leading the ‘War against Internal Changes to Social Media Platforms’. A random political representative who was the only one available for sound bytes has said ,“I just got used to this Timeline concept. Who does Zuckerburg think he is, going around making changes?” The rest of the world is hopeful that this shift in priorities implies that this means that the USA will finally get off their backs.
Now that Facebook is back up, however, this blogger requests that all of her readers make use of it and like and share the articles that she and her fellow bloggers have posted.
-By Gauri Gaur
