I DON'T SPEAK HASHTAG.

I DON'T SPEAK HASHTAG

Nope... I don't.

*shakes head in affirmation*

Back in the day, things used to be simpler. Yahoo messenger was all a guy needed, and to the common man, "Apple" and "Blackberry" were merely fruits. Smart phones were for nerds and for those who could code in bare-bones C++, and hanging out with friends had little to do with google.

The statement "...go and face book..." did not bring smiles to playful teenager's faces.

And usually, When someone "liked" something, it meant that they actually did.

But now, muddled in all the trends, shares, broadcasts, pings, twits (or tweets; I hardly know which is which these days), pokes, quotes, PM's, DM's, EM's, BBM's and DP's, communication with people has become a little more complex for me, and with each additional "You have a new...*something*" with it I get a slight but directly proportional increase in my BP.

I mean, where do I begin?

So I log in somewhere one random morning after leaving that virtual space on the internet idle for quite a long while and I get attacked by something like this:

"You have 45 Notifications, 36 Likes, 22 Shares (I don't remember discussing with my stock broker, but surely if I had, I would have bought more than twenty two of them... I mean, who does that?) 12 Pokes, 19 PM's, 214 followers...

Aaah... Oti oh!

There was this predominant abbreviation toted about by so many people in the column for responses as if it was done purely by reflex, so I decided to check it out and I googled "Kffb" innocently thinking it was a new philosophical movement of some sort.

I was not amused... Oh you want followers abi?

Now just imagine you stepped out into the street one evening and suddenly had two hundred people spontaneously start to follow you. I believe that you would most definitely look for a secure corner to hide whilst shouting for help at the top of your lungs, sprinkling the entire pathway with the blood of Jesus, whilst vocally covering yourself in a circle of fire.

Deliverance things, nonii. Or as my Lagosian friend would put it "...Eleyi gidi gan..."

Anyway, having navigated through all my notifications and messages, (many of which comprised "e-vites" for me to come and rear virtual cattle and plant virtual crops, or to take control of a virtual city by gaining enough points from being a drug-dealing slumlord) I proceeded to go through all my contacts' newly posted photos, whilst valiantly trying to ignore the pop-up that very kindly kept on reminding me of how many lonely girls were ready to chat with me that night.

With two hundred plus followers who had "tagged" you, one could begin to imagine the considerable stress he'd have to go through to view every single one of their photos.

Not to mention bandwidth... Geez, Megabytes are burning

And oh no... Each of them didn't just take one or two photos and then leave it at that. There were hundreds of them, and in what I could swear was the exact same pose. A slight hand tilt, maybe... But that was all!

Oh my gosh...

No... I'm not gonna tell you to look at anybody's butt... Keep moving.

All of this would have at least been bearable, if some certain people with a very compelling music video had not gone ahead to make matters worse.

But then what do you expect from a bunch of fellas who chain smoke and take pictures in front of mirrors all day?

And so boys and girls, we now have upon us the era of the Selfie.

Selfie... With a hashtag.

Hashtag selfie.

I used to think there were specific rules for the use of or naming a hashtag, where each hashtag represented the beginning of a line of code or some online trend, or some miscellaneous search for meta data.

I was mistaken. There seems to be a hashtag anything.

Hashtag balling, hashtag cruising, hashtag chilling, hashtag scoring, hashtag goal-keeping, hashtag besties, hashtag nomorehashtagsi'mdoneokay

WTF?! *breathing fire* *sharpening machete*

Heck, you might as well make a song out of it:

Hashtag me... hashtag you... hashtag mavin, we're the baddest crew. Mmm? Ehen.

With this phenomenon of hashtags on photographs, there's also another thing.

It's hashtags of photographs with...

Wait for it...

It's hashtags of photographs with a filter.

A Filter!

As if the photograph is a premium cigarette... or a bottle of Star or something.

Shine shine bobor, who no like better thing? *singing*

Apparently there are a numerous number of these new fangled filter devices for photograph manipula... err... erm... Photograph purification... yes.

I'll admit it, 'cos there's no shame in it... I do not know what the heck filters are, and I can't name any to save my own life.

The only image that the word "filter" brings to my mind is a white, circular piece of paper about to be folded into a funnel... Just saying.

In fact I'm so cluless that when a chic told me her photo was Valencia I was like

"...Wow, really!? So when did you come back from Spain..?"

but her stupified stare was enough hint for me start trying to pass off what I'd just said as a joke.

Till today she still looks at me funny.

Well, in essence, all of the above which I've just recounted has made it such that I chat up online with a lot of selfish people.

Yes, actually, I think that's what they call themselves these days... Selfish people, lords and ladies of the selfie.

But that's like saying the same thing twice, don't you think? Saying "Selfish People" is like saying "White Cloud"

Clouds are already assumed to be white. People are already assumed to be...?

***picture a village classroom of pupils sitting under a mango tree***

"Eskew me ma, eskew me ma..." "...yes, akpos..." "Selfish!"

Good boy, clap for yourself.

So, about these lovely selfish people. There are so many of them with their online accounts and their various... What's that word again? Lids..? Covers..?

*snapping fingers and trying to recall*

It has something to do with a pot...

Aha! ...Handles!

Online accounts with their various handles.

Its a slightly funny thing too because whenever I stop to consider it, I realise that many of these selfish people I chat with are twins.

I'll get to that soon, but first... Let me take a selfie...

***current status: 65 shots taken, only 2 to show for it***

But I digress...

People say twins are relatively rare. I wonder why, because I encounter at least three pairs of them every other day within a week. You know, like in the morning I could be chatting with Ijeoma, then perhaps agree to meet later for drinks in the evening, only for her twin sister to show up instead.

Her less glamorous-looking, somehow-strangely-not-as-beautiful twin sister who, surprisingly, has exactly the same name.

But I don't really get bothered, as I can easily tell the two apart.

For instance; apart from looks, her twin sister is less eccentric in speech, uses less curse words, and works as an intern at the central library... compared to Ijeoma who is the Worldwide Divisional manager at Microsoft Corporation.

Impressive, right?

Yeah, now I think of it, it actually does make sense that Ijeoma couldn't meet up with me in Lagos that same evening because her flight from Milan where her profile said she lived might have been cancelled last minute.

And funny thing, the same usually happens with Prisca and Lolade.

Their insanely busy schedules shown online in comparison to mine leave me a little ruffled, considering that much of what I did that entire day before meeting up with their twin later was basically watch a movie, make lunch, write a few entries to be posted, and then take a nap.

If I didn't know any better I'd say that they weren't actually twins, and that they were up to some misguided attempt at egotistic self-boosting with a virtual life, and wished their real life was actually as glam.

No way, it can't be... Not with all the happening events they attend, pictures they upload, and timelines they update; I mean, considering how content people usually are with their normal lives, I can't even begin to imagine how such pretence could even... be... possib...

Oh.

anak adrian is a guest writer.  oh well he didn't want me using superflous words to describe him but i think he's really cool.

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