Let’s Face it, everyone just wants to have fun

by Yeoh Siew Hoon

My “CAO” – Chief Accounting Officer – told me the other day when we were going through my financials, “You need to spend your time more productively. Make more money.”

I love Nancy. She’s worked with me for more than a decade and knows my ways well. She’s the only one from whom I will take a rebuke, and not revolt.

See, Nancy knows I’ve been frittering my time away on stuff that’s fun, but essentially useless. Useless as defined by “that which does not result in any immediate financial gain”.

For example, I’ve been wasting a lot of time on Facebook, throwing sheep at my friends, poking and mooning them, sending them naughty gifts like pink knickers, dancing with them, buying them beer, drunk-dialling them and generally being a right nuisance.

I’ve dedicated songs, shown them my photos, bared my life, shared my secrets and kept them updated, whether they like it or not, on my daily moods and activities. “Yeoh is … bored”. “Yeoh is … grounded.”

This is what I call the age of “Me, Myself & I”. Love Me, Love My Dog, Love My Friends.

Look at me, I’m Sandra Dee – so busy, so clever, so many friends and oh yes, so caring because I also support causes. Heck, it’s so easy, just click on a link and join. And I feel good. Instant gratification. Immediate guilt relief. Simultaneous orgasm with like-minded folks.

In fact, I’ve spent so much time on Facebook that I haven’t had time to meet them face to face. I think that’s why it’s called Facebook – after you join, you don’t need to see anyone’s faces except on the computer screen.

I am being facetious, really. Facebook is fun. It’s cool. Super uber cool, in fact. I mean, the 24-year-old boy who invented it is being courted by major suitors for uber serious bucks, so it must mean something, right?

Although I heard on television that the folks at eBay have confessed they paid too much for Skype and that two of its uber executives have resigned … these days, it’s hard to tell hype from froth.

Anyway, I’ve connected with friends I’ve lost touch with. I’ve had repartees I wouldn’t have had in real life because these days, when you meet someone face to face, you hardly know how to talk anymore because you are so out of practice.

I’ve also found out lots of useless things about my friends and their friends and their friends’ friends by reading things on their Wall. The Wall, unlike the other Wall which came down in that city called Berlin, is your personal, public space on which you write or draw stuff you want others to see.

By reading the writing on The Wall, you glean insights into someone – for example, what kind of friends they have, what they get up to when drunk, their “cool” factor, and generally what kind of people they are so you can then decide if you still want them to be your friend.

It’s a bit like reading the stuff on toilet walls you see in some public facilities in Europe, really. There’s something almost voyeuristic about it.

Another site I couldn’t resist checking out when I read about it is a new social networking site for women and travel. It’s called chicksaway and the whole premise is for us chicks to “Dream, Connect, Share & Remember”.

It allows us to dream about our ideal vacation, connect with other women and share stories and images. And as with everything these days, all roads lead back to Facebook. Blogs on chicksaway can be imported to the site, as well as other social media.

When I visited it though, its content was rather sparse with stories and its community small – but then, it’s just got started and chicks, as we all know, take time to take flight.

The problem is, how will this chick – along her millions of working sisters around the world – find the time to do all these things and yet make money to feed their brood.

Catch up with Yeoh Siew Hoon every week at The Transit Cafe (or the URL www.thetransitcafe.com)