The Taxonomy of The Status Message

I know I haven't blogged in a while, but that's mainly because I've been doing a lot of other writing (short stories, movie scripts, sci fi novels..... and i already see you groaning and saying.."yeah right")...

A careful analysis of all the posts on my Face-book and Gtalk feed show me that there are really only four types of status messages.

Type 1: The Cribber: Mostly originating from all types of people who have to work at some point of time during their day. Sometimes from people who dont have any work at all too.
but most of the time originating from people who have to do something awesomely difficult.. like get up and switch on the fan.. or eat a bar of chocolate (Catch my drift?)...

Examples: Have soooo many deadlines.... Oh my god my pet rock is on a tree and i'm sitting down calling to it but its so much work that my throat aches. Oh shit oh damn it to hell i need to write an assignment and i'm not in a mood because i'm so damn lazy but its not good to be lazy and i need to work....etc etc.. blah blah.. blooh blooh.. yeah whatever..... crib crib..

Type 2: The Show Off: This is a classic and has existed ever since the early days of social networking.... and ever since Aol gave you that annoying custom status message option... Messages of this type range from the well intended, "I had such a great time in [add place here]" to the impossible... "I just did thirteen hours on the treadmill"....

A popular benign subtype of type 2...is the quotation...Most people have this irresistable urge to transform a common quote they heard into their status message. most have the good nature to credit the source...

Type 3: The Beyonder: Have you ever read one of those status messages that doesnt seem to make any sense at all ? Something about dreams and chaos and several other esoteric concepts written in a way that they're understandable only to those that write them?... Well.. there it is.. you have something thats beyond you... we choose to call this, the Beyonder..

Example: Springy Dreams bylane the corner of the window when abracadabra we chant.

(P.S. Dont even try explaining to me what this means...)

Type 4: The Social Butterfly: Well.. there's those messages where people want to thank, congratulate or placate other users. Something about "Oh this person draws like a cuckoo that just had enough caffeine to kill a bull elephant.." or something like that. These are mostly well intended... and give both the person and the recipient enough snob value to last a week.. Some trivia here.. i initially wanted to call this type something else (P.S. this blog still is PG-13).. but decided to stick with the current name...

Cross Breeds: Type 1 messages and Type 2 messages tend to dominate most wall posts.. though, as mentioned before, the line between the four types blurs considerably. For example, sometimes a type 1 message is used to create the effect of a type 2. For example.. consider the following message.

"OH I'm on the lab on a sunday morning when everyone else is either watching rosie o donnel or sleeping".. this message is essentially a type 1 intended to create the effect of a type 2. Cribbing as a means of showing off..!!

Most type 3 messages are also intended to have the effect of type 2....Oh my god look at me.. I can write this but u cant understand..!

Think about it.. take any message... any message at all on facebook, aol, gtalk, orkut.. heck anything at all.. and it shall be a combination of these four types...


(Thanks for reading. Comment Away !!)