Me, trying to cool up!

I’m no oldie but there are a few things many people in this “young generation” do that I don’t understand at all. No matter how much I try, I’m simply unable to do it and be like them. Since most of them are doing it, whatever they are doing is supposed to be cool, I assumed. But no matter how much I try, I’m unable to “cool up”, you know what I mean. And these cool people have really cool friends who are really cool, like they hang out, go to real fun places, are there for each other when they cry, and the best part! The birthdays!!! So yeah, whenever there is a birthday of anybody in their “squad” (FYI [For your information] squad is THE word cool people use for their cool group of friends and they have “squad goals” which aim at being cooler than the coolest basically. Didn’t you know that? Well, I’m better than you!) the rest of the squad ensures that the birthday person is made to feel good. First, they show up at the birthday person’s place with a cake (yum) at 12 AM in the midnight (wow) and of course, the birthday person doesn’t expect it in the least (what a surprise!). So the birthday person cuts the cake and the rest sing the happy birthday song real loud (No, cool people don’t care about neighbours and stuff) and then comes the best part! Smearing the cake on the birthday person’s face! Yaaay!! (“Such a waste!” OMG [Oh, my God!] Did I say something uncool?). Not to forget the millions of pictures that are to be taken with the “cake facial”. And yeah, if there’s any cake left the birthday person smears it on the faces of the rest of the squad as revenge (Were you thinking they’d eat it? That’s not how cool people work!). Then comes the gift opening time. Oh, and the gifts are super amazing, trust me! There’s a collage showing all your pictures, selfies (that’s what cool people do all. the. time.), pictures with your friends and pictures of all the best moments in your life! (Awww! I wish someone’d do that for me. Wait! I don’t have so many pictures. I’m going to change this immediately after I finish writing this!). There’s also a poster, a t-shirt, a coffee mug and other such items which have quotes and pictures of the birthday person’s favourite TV show or band or whatever fandom they belong to (Oh, c’mon! Don’t tell me you don’t watch TV or Youtube!). When it comes to closing the midnight session (the day has only begun ;) ) the squad gathers to take pictures, pictures of all of them together, pictures of an individual from the squad with the birthday person, pictures of the couple in the squad (Oh, they are the cutest!), if the birthday person is a part of the couple, then that’s even more better, because they get extra special treatment (what’s more cute than a couple in love?), pictures with the gifts and pictures basically, lots and lots of them!

Then comes the time to upload all this fun on social media (It’s your birthday and the whole world has to know, right?). Now, here comes the tricky part, writing about how much fun they had. Yeah, I can write but not like the cool people K. So there’s this thing called a “hashtag” and I’m simply unable to get my mind around the question of how to use it. For a long time, I didn’t know what it was (OK, don’t judge me now) and I couldn’t ask anyone (for the fear of being labelled uncool) so the nerd in me looked up to Google (the one thing that has consistently helped me act cool before the “coolies” [OK, cool people is just too long]) which gave me this definition. “A hashtag is a type of label or metadata tag used on social network and microblogging services which makes it easier for users to find messages with a specific theme or content.” (Source: Wikipedia). But that somehow didn’t answer my questions. The definition didn’t match its practical application, the way in which people were using it. My observation and general analysis of the coolies revealed that there were various ways in which a hashtag could be used and I just couldn’t get my mind to stick to one. There were people who used it for every word in the sentence like #I #am #so #happy and then there were people who just used one hashtag for the entire sentence like #Iamsohappy (which makes it really difficult for a dunce like me to figure out what exactly they were saying in cases like #gotitdone, is it go tit done? That doesn’t sound right?) and there were people whose entire posts consisted of hashtags and their post was made up of just words and phrases with hashtags to describe their exerience like #b’day #cake #happy #surprise #squadlove #yum #cakesmear (so clever). As much as I wanted to look cool, I couldn’t figure out these hashtags. I’m still doing my research about the best way to use them and one day, I will succeed in looking cool (hashtag wise).

Later in the day the squad meets up again and all of them hang out together (Doesn’t all this hanging hurt their arms?). Ummm..When do they go out with their families? (Oh no! I’ve said something uncool again, haven’t I?). Of course coolies don’t have time for the family! They go to really cool places like for instance a bowling alley, or a very expensive restaurant or a lounge or a, pub (pubs are the coolest dude!). Time for more pictures and “check-ins”. So they post on Facebook saying they were at “cool place” with 7 others which is essentially what a “check-in” on social media means (for all you dunces out there). All these posts are immediately uploaded on all the social media accounts of all the squad members. The birthday person’s Wall (The Facebook Wall) is flooded with posts from all the squad members. Bonus! Posts from the old squad members like your school squad for example (you gotta have more than one squad if you’re cool, that’s the whole point!) with lovely pictures from your school days and excruciatingly (ok, cool people don’t use such big words) long posts saying how much the birthday person means to them and how much they miss the birthday person with of course, a picture from their school days (Ah! The memories!)

There ends a very happy birthday of a coolie. They finally put a post stating how much they love the squad and stating how much this birthday was better than the last one. This entire process repeats again for their next birthday and the one after that. How can you say one birthday was better than the last when all your birthdays are the same? (Uncool again! I think I should just shut up and keep my thoughts to myself!)