Deleting these was unique experience.
I think the emotional content in deleting a social networking account is analogous to death.
I joined Orkut in my second year of college degree, i.e. I was born in that world. I only had one person in my friend list, the one who invited me, just like a baby who only has her mother when born. Slowly, I understood this world and learnt its ways. As I grew up my acquaintances grew. More people came in my contact. As the first year passed, I had many friends in my friend list and many of them used to talk to me on a regular basis. I was young in this world. We used to send messages & scraps to each other. I became member of various communities and actively participated in them. I also started one new community. I and my friends used to search, meet and woo girls on Orkut. We used to write almost everything in praise and send them as each other’s testimonials. Sometimes we had fights, where we used to group together and fight on some issue. Young on Orkut looked like the entire Orkut was mine. I did everything and enjoyed every moment of my youth on Orkut. But the truth was that I was growing old and so was the Orkut society. People became conservative. The environment and culture was not the same now. The entire Orkut went into a new era. May be it was I who did not change, but everyone else moved into a new culture. It was then that I stepped in later half of my life on Orkut. I was calm, thoughtful and modest. My scraps and messages reflected witty thought. The testimonial I sent were genuine and I only accepted those that described me as myself. Anything more or anything less in the testimonial looked like a wrong statement. I now felt responsible for my statements, comments and testimonials. I was too experienced on the Orkut to indulge in anything unfair. Day by day, my activities on Orkut were reduced. I was less frequent to the communities I had joined in my youth. We had started a private community with only close friends. Whenever, I was on Orkut, I used to check for messages and comments on that group. Most of the times I logged in to check for updates only on this community. It is true that when you are old, you only have a few close friends were you feel young, and all of them were in that community. Wapping memories of past come to life as you interact with them at such places.
Suddenly something unexpected happened. I found that one of my dear friends was missing from Orkut. News came like a setback to all of us and all were worried. We later discovered that his account was deleted from Orkut. He had a trifle fight with someone and they voted them out of Orkut. We suspected if he was innocent in this issue but still the penalty he paid was much more than he deserved. His demise from Orkut made us realise the fragility of our own existence. Though he came back, but he was not the same. I tried to contemplate as why I felt that he was not the same, but I did not find a reason.
Then one day, I was out of the Orkut. I had my Orkut account deleted.
With loads of unfulfilled wishes and undone work, I exited Orkut. The experience of that moment was indeed overwhelmingly emotional. I knew, I will not be able to come back again but at the same time I knew I cannot stay more. My exit was inevitable. The moment the decision was taken, any possibility of overriding the fate was gone. It took me a while to delete the account. I visited my communities, read my testimonial, recalled those who left before me and visited the profile of friends and family. I checked my fan list. I checked the total number of visitor to me till date and the number on that day. Though, it was senseless, but I accepted all pending friend requests. I prepared myself for the exit. Then I deleted it. One of the few mistakes was that I missed to save a community, where I was owner. I wanted to go back and correct it, but I could not. This was a unique feeling. I knew that there was a problem and I badly wanted to correct it. But at the same time I felt that this is no longer my problem nor was it my world anymore. In the midst of issue, I felt insulated from any harm.
I want to convey this to all my Orkut friends, but I am not there. So I posted this on my blog.
Those Orkut users who are blogger may read it and in some cases tell this to others on Orkut. Isn’t this analogous to a spiritual person reading the feelings of dead? Here, the bogglers with Orkut account are the connection between these two worlds, I am the dead and Orkut users who miss me are ignorant beings in the world of Orkut.
J
