When you look at a very funny meme, what do you do?
When there’s a post you want a friend of yours to see, what do you do?
When you come across a really interesting post on facebook, what do you do?
Or..better yet…
When you saw the title of this post what did you think of doing?
The answer to this all should be SHARE : privately or publicly, a no-brainer thing to do as you reach a wider audience and many would benefit from it.
But hey, it’s 2017 and that’s not how facebook is used.
Really though, the tagging business has changed how we use facebook. In fact, I’d say taggings are the only reason why we are still hooked up to this social media that should have been redundant by now.
Relatable meme? That best friend of yours tags you. It is directed to you, but the post reaches out to your friends. Now what this does is –
a) You go “aww” because that guy is thinking about you right now. But then a nanosecond later you would realize –
b) you are indirectly becoming a laughing stock in public.
What do you do then? Tag him in another meme. Sweet Revenge.
HOW DID IT ALL STARTED?
In my extensive research for the post (which involved exactly one Google search), I came across the fact that FB started the business of mentioning in comments somewhere near 2011. Yeah, the time when most of us were living our lyf wr8n lyk dis.
No one really knows who started the fad and how it spread. I started it some 3 years back looking at my friends tagging others in memes. Till then it was a quite routine of PMing your friends the posts and poking them with a limited audience.
IT’S EVERYONE’S GAMEPLAY
Every user from our generation today is on the game today. You may use facebook once a month or once every minute, tagging is really in your nerves now. The older gen is not yet catched up to it, thankfully. Or you can imagine the kind of posts you will be tagged in!
If we aren’t stopping the trend, the guys on the other side of the platform aren’t ready to give in either. Posts range from seriously witty ones –
To some repetetive, cheesy ones –
To some outright disgusting ones –
Since mentions leaves a huge impact on the viewership, anyone can start a page today, keep making such posts and the comments with the tag won’t stop.
And it’s not just them, brands are also smartly using this fad to increase their visibility and engage their audience.
People are gaining fame and cash from our tags. Did you think about that?
And, not to forget, it has also become a newfound parameter for judging friendships. If you have BFF and you don’t tag them in comments, what are they even there for?
SO, IS THIS BAD?
At the end of the day, Social Media is a place where you (mostly) chill around and have fun. Nothing is good or bad, unless done excessively of course. In this case though, excessive taggings are considered a blessing, right?
So just continue if you love doing it. The user, the marketing teams and Mark over there are all happy with the trend. Why stop?
Also, I will be glad if you tag your folks for the FB post here. Even more glad if you go the old school way and share it with all!
Happy tagging!
THE VIKHYATH TIMES 