Happiness and the Online World

'It might seem crazy what I’m about to say'

A few weeks ago, I read that selfie had been voted the word that best described 2013. Personally, I started taking unflattering shots of myself ages ago –and when I say ages, I mean way before Facebook was invented and way before I owned my first digital camera. Obviously back then, the risk of looking awful from very close up was much higher, and you couldn’t just delete the photo with the touch of a button. I’m not trying to tell you that I invented the selfie, nor that I am brave or avant-gardist but that at times; something that has been around for a while can suddenly become huge for all the wrong reasons.

Only 4 months into 2014 and it’s obvious. The word for this year is HAPPY.  It’s like a Wet Wet Wet song; happiness is all around us and people certainly let it show. So what the f**k am I moaning about, I hear you ask? Isn’t that a good thing? Well… you know that friend that is just madly in love and won’t stop uploading sickly photos kissing their soul mate on a bed of marshmallows and publishing eternal love declarations full of ridiculous nicknames? Don’t lie, we all know one at least; and no matter how much we love them, every time we’ve ended up having to block their updates before the need to shoot someone became too strong. Why? Because, as adults, we learn that all good things in life must be shared responsibly and in moderate amounts. This goes for love, chocolate, piña colada and happiness.

The problem with happiness this year, is that it comes in many different forms, each one more annoying than the next.

It all started with was that song. The brainwash was so effective that I don’t even need to mention which one. And as if we hadn’t heard it enough, we also had to put up with the of oh-so-original cover videos of strangers dancing to it in more or less the same way as done in the hatted dude’s video - it wouldn’t’ be funny otherwise.

Along with that annoying but nonetheless catchy tune came the constant obsession on social networks about the pursuit of happiness. You know what they say; “happiness is a journey, not a destination”? Well this year, there are so many people on the way, I’d be surprised if we don’t get into a bloody traffic jam. 

First there’s the links everyone wants you to click on.

**  The “intellectual” articles, full of clever advice:

“10 Things Happy People Do. #9 will have you bouncing off the walls”.  Hmmmm… really?

**   The inspirational talk videos that will make you feel like an insensitive bastard for not shedding a few tears: 

“This woman talks about the rejection she suffered for not liking bunnies. 00:21:32 and 03:57:15 (that’s how long those feel sometimes) will have you reach for the tissue box to wipe out a little snot".

**   Other videos or articles that will supposedly restore your faith in humanity:

“This old grizzly bear is walking alone in the woods. What happens next will leave you speechless”.

The blatant spoilers in the titles will not only trick you into clicking and wasting 5 minutes of your life but into thinking happiness is an easy and quick business. They suggest that, the same way you can skip the nearly entire article to get to the highlighted “most interesting” part, happiness will be achieved by missing out the boring steps.

I don’t think so.

If you belong to those who, to brighten their day, need a little more than to watch charismatic models kissing in black and white onto inspirational music, FEAR NOT.  The revolutionary idea in 2014 is that happiness comes from the little things in your daily life: stroking your cat, smoking a joint or masturbating in the morning. Acknowledge these random moments and you’ll feel more grateful, therefore happy. Nothing is more true, so why the f**k am I still complaining?

Well, while I can’t argue that it is essential to be able to pin down the simple things that put a smile on your face, I would like to know what specialists have to say about the need to share it with the rest of the world.  You see, we’re not talking about posting a nice sunset shot every once in a while. We are talking about uploading 

#blurry#photos#of#food#drinks#and#friends#accompanied#by#annoyingly#hard#to#read#sequences#of#words#jumbled#together#and#vaguely#related#to#the#pseudo#inspiring#moment

not just sometimes but EVERY DAY for 100 DAYS IN A ROW!

That’s way more than any normally constituted human being can take if you ask me.

The problem with the little things that make other people happy, is that they are of very little interest to anyone else. Hence the word “little”. And you know what? That’s fine! Stupidly simple things make me happy too. Like the weather having cooled down enough for me to be able to close my window at night. Does that deserve acknowledging? YES. Does that deserve its own photo with a #nomosquitostonight #hahahatakethatyousbloodsuckingbitch (remember that in this case, the enemy is female)? 
The answer: you got it, NO.

What bothers me most in these types of posts is that, not only do they lack originality and creativity -2 qualities shared by happy people if you believe the lists mentioned above, but they also support the idea that internet has become the sole proof of existence of EVERYTHING. If the solar system didn’t have a Facebook profile, people would go back to questioning it. If the news is not online, it’s not happened. If you didn’t check-in you weren’t there. And the newest and saddest one: if a moment is not hash tagged, it’s not happy.

Hashtags are my new worst enemy.

They have this laziness and absence of emotions about them. As if people hadn’t already forgotten how to spell properly, now we even stopped bothering about making a full sentence. Sometimes, I wake up at night wondering how we used to communicate in the written world without smileys and hashtags. Words must have carried back a whole lot more meaning back then.

Just imagine Shakespeare writing on Facebook:

 HAMLET:feeling confused   “2B or not 2B?” #thatisthequestion

 

What I am deploring here is not the fact that people are trying harder (and possibly better) at being happy. My problem is that this year, happiness has become the new selfie. This is no longer about the quest for inner well-being, but another way of attracting people’s attention and obtaining their approval via much-desired “Likes”. Is a person really happy if no one else knows about it? I guess it is in human nature to need to share strong emotions. What feels wrong to me is the way we seem to have simplified it down to posting a few words online along with a bunch of symbols and yellow faces and then wonder why we are left unsatisfied and craving more attention.

I won’t deny it; I too have clicked on the links and watched the videos. What happened next was fairly uninspiring. But then, life wouldn’t be exciting if all we had to do to be content forever was spend 5 minutes on YouTube. That’s the beauty of it all for me; some things are so wonderfully complex they can’t be boiled down to a simple formula.

So like everyone else this year, I’m also on the path to happiness; only I’m trying to take the road less travelled. I am doing what so many have done lately: pinpoint my joyful little moments and share them with those I love… or not. 

I will stay true to myself and do it my own weird ways, taking countless mental snapshots, feeling more emotion I can handle at once and speaking more words you can bear to listen.

And most importantly, I will make sure that I do so in the real world.