I am just a Facebook post

I am a Facebook post with 26000 likes and 1972 comments. And I almost forgot, 223 shares.

Words and photos don’t count for much nowadays. They were a big deal in the olden days when every word written or spoken meant something. Every photo was looked at, in depth.

Look at me. I have a meaningless photograph of a famous actor sleeping. I wonder if any such photo would have interested anyone a few years back. That photo has some 3-4 words with it. Those words are “sleeping time, good night world.” That’s it. That is how I came into being. But that photo and words are the reason for my likes and comments and shares. That’s the reason I got famous.

Most of the time after I was created, I don’t do anything. I just laze around waiting for someone to notice me. I got lucky. Someone noticed me and liked me. And he also put some comment that, in my view, was a combination of stupid and intelligent. But I take the good with the bad. Mostly bad.

It was a comment that said, ‘if you are sleeping, who clicked the photo and created this post?’ Valid question. Like most beings, even I don’t know how I was created and where I came from, especially if my creator, the man in the picture, was really sleeping. But it doesn’t matter.

That comment got me some 500 likes and loves and laughs and what not. There are various ways in which people can express their emotions about me. Some of them may be well meaning. Most of them are fake and momentary. But they increase my popularity, however fleeting it might be.

Then someone added another comment about the health benefits of a good night’s sleep. Someone else argued against it. Someone said that the man in the picture has been sleeping through the year and not contributing to the country. All of these comments added to my life span. I got a real life.

Many of my brothers and sisters aren’t that lucky. As I said, I got lucky. And those types of comments led to 311 replies, and more than 250 comments, which themselves got liked and loved and laughed at. So I created a family of comments, likes, replies of my own. Not to forget the shares.

Many ‘take rest’ comments, ‘have a good night’s sleep’ replies, ‘sweet dreams’ and so on added to my growing dynasty. Now me and my extended family have a life of its own.

That’s how I got here. But despite all the fame and wealth of likes that I got, when I think about who I really am, I sometimes get into an existential crisis.

I am just a bunch of words, after all. A whole lot of mostly repetitive, mostly inane, and mostly useless words. If you counted them all, they could add up to the length of a short story.

How did I get here? How long will I be here waiting for someone to notice me? How long will I live here? Does anybody really care about me? I don’t know. I know of some in my clan who have so many words that they would add up to being as big as a novel. They have a somewhat longer life. But even they face the same questions.

That’s how life is for me and my clan. I have a few friends who live even lesser than me. Some who don’t even have a life, because they don’t get noticed. Some cousins live longer, like comments on YouTube videos which are called viral. They are real stars.

It all depends on our creator, I guess. And then it depends on who notices us, whether we are in the right place at the right time or not. Some of my friends are memes and stickers who have an even shorter life. That’s how it is. Life is like that.

But after all, what else can I expect? After all, I am just a Facebook post. But don’t get me wrong. I am not complaining. I am a thriving Facebook post. From the time I started this note till now, I am now a Facebook post with 27000 likes and 2500 comments and 290 shares.

And my creator is sleeping still, pun intended. It is nowhere close to morning! Life is good till then.

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