THE FACEBOOK HATERS!

So the entire world is on Facebook; from your little brother to your gramps to even your neighbor’s pet dog. Social networking sites like Facebook and Twitter have redefined the way we live percolating into our private lives and broadcasting it to the world. Although only few of us care about the privacy issues Facebook or Twitter pose, there is no way to stay away from these two, lest you want to be aloof from what’s happening around you.

One of the many reasons why the phenomenon of social networking is so well-liked is because of the presence of celebrities in abundance who tweet or update their Facebook walls regularly about their private and professional likes alike. It’s simple logic; by being on social networking sites, they can instantly connect to their fans and the fact that it’s also another way to promote their movies / music. They are also privy to the fact that there is immense reach in these platforms. Whatever is on your wall is on everybody’s eyes.

But this freebie publicity also has its own inherent issues. Recently Shah Rukh announced that he is abandoning Twitter, thereby also abandoning his 8 lakh followers who were religiously following his tweets and circulating it in the million SRK forums. Reason being nasty comments posted on his twitter feed by people posing as his fans. But the Badshah isn’t abandoning social networking at any cost. He says he is moving to Facebook.

While as it seems Bollywood in the whole has taken to using social networking sites the scene is not so rampant in other regional languages. Although there is tremendous presence of netsavvy new gen celebrities on both Facebook and twitter, South India mostly operates upon the conventional mode for publicity. Oddly, the celebrities only tweet about their personal happenings – mostly like you and me – and refrain from posting anything about their movies or other projects they are associated in. Rarely ever do they write anything about their movies. May be they are bound by disclosure agreements or just that they do not want to earn the ire of the movie’s publicist.

There are Facebook (like page) or Twitter accounts in the name of most of the established senior actors (such as Rajini, Kamal, Mohanlal and Mamooty) in South India. They are largely fake / inactive with user’s often posing questions that go unanswered. Even the second generation stars like Vijay, Ajith, Vikram and Suriya are not active in the social networking circle.

Hollywood has its own share of Facebook haters who make no bones about speaking out on social networking sites. Ironically, singer / actor Justin Timberlake, who played the role of Sean Parker (one of Facebook’s founders) in the movie The Social Network is a self-endorsed Facebook hater. It roots from the fact that he is generally not good with computers. He seems to have said, “I’m sort of admittedly ridiculously stupid with computers.”

If that, you think is weird, Jesse Eisenberg who played the role of Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg in the super hit The Social Network doesn’t want to be on any social networking sites. He apparently finds writing about “the breakfast I tried to eat” boring. Fair enough. The fact that he performed the passionate Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg on screen to perfection deserves mention (especially since he has contrasting views about Facebook than Zuckerberg).

Another self-proclaimed Facebook hater, who famously once stated that, “he would rather have a prostate exam on live television by a guy with very cold hands than have a Facebook page” is George Clooney. Now if you are George Clooney and are constantly hounded by paparazzi and stalked by fanatic fans who want a piece of him it’s only natural that you want to do yourself a favor by not creating a Facebook page.

Few significant film stars from the current generation who do not feel much about Facebook include Jennifer Aniston, Kristen Stewart, Drew Barrymore, Robert Pattison and Keira Knightley. Miley Cyrus who was all over Twitter and Facebook recently pulled out of the sites because it dawned on her that the experience is ‘dangerous’ and ‘kind of lame’.

But those haters are only a drop in an ocean of celebrities who often provide you with hour by hour updates using heir tweets or wall posts. Experts say celebs can’t afford to stay off social networking sites for obvious reasons (that they are easy – and probably safe as well – to interact with their followers). There is another business sprouted surrounding this; websites that help you locate your favorite celebrity’s facebook or twitter updates. One such is theofficialprofileof dot com.

Although a cliché, it’s no more relevant than it is now to say that ‘the world has shrunk’.