You can read the entire T5E Vacation Guide 2014-15 here.
It is common knowledge that social networks can fuel boredom and procrastination like selfies fuel egos. A black hole of time-wasting and self-loathing, punctuated with the occasional comment war and cat video, Facebook, Twitter, and such aren’t just for making your friends and colleagues believe your life is better than theirs anymore.
1. Funny Pages – At some point in the past few years, Facebook became a platform where content could be consumed, presumably because people got tired of the social part of social networks. Pages started popping up with “funny” and “relatable” posts and pictures, and Facebook page offshoots of popular websites — like See More — became a hit (presumably because of the massive effort it takes to click through to a website as opposed to having everything appear on a news feed). The Dolan meme, for example, features highly distorted MS Paint parodies of popular figures speaking in a comical dialect. It began with a parody of Donald Duck (Dolan Duk) and has branched out into a mighty beast of variants including Norinder Mudi and Monmuhin.
2. Feigning Productivity – There are also a slew of pages that act as a playground for the esoteric. The IITM Quiz Club page is a good place to pick up some trivia/show off the trivia you already know. Similar groups exist for Word Games, Fantasy Football and most other niche interests.
3. Apps – Facebook comes with apps that are mostly viewed with a certain level of consternation, probably owing to the barrage of Candy Crush and Farmville (for anyone still in 2009) requests that appear in one’s notifications. There are some interesting popular apps around though. The Goodreads App allows users to rate and review books and find books suitable to their interests. MTV Match Machine — an app for the romantically inclined — was a big thing at some point. It used information from your Facebook account to determine the perfect mate — an extremely useful tool for those who tire of the rigors of courtship, and need the firm guiding hand of algorithms to direct them to their perfect mate.
1. Hashtag Stuff – One of the most relevant pieces of social commentary on this generation is that it has evolved slowly and painfully into the generation that relies on the hashtag to communicate effectively. It has spawned quite a few interesting Hashtag Games, however, with hilarious results such as #ReplaceMovieTitleWithSausage (who doesn’t want to watch The Fault In Our Sausage?) and #AmericanizeAMovieQuote (“May the divorce be with you”)
2. Random Automated Accounts – One of the many spam accounts on twitter titled Horse Ebooks became well-noted for often accidentally being pithy and philosophical. With gems like “everything happens so much” and “I will make certain you never buy knives again”, it spawned many abstract imitators that weren’t automated like Hostile Goose and Doctor Pug. There’s also the Big Ben account which basically just goes BONG for every hour at GMT and Faulty Big Ben which goes BONG for every hour, except it’s faulty.
3. Funny Accounts – The Plot Twists account that provides funny “twists” to movies is a reliable source of hilarity. For those who wish to develop a deeper understanding of philosophy through the filter of Hollywood’s biggest egos, look no further. Kantye West and Kim Kierkegaardashian juxtapose the tweets of Kanye West and Kim Kardashian with quotes from Kant and Kierkegaard respectively.
4. Informative Accounts – Pocket History offers bite-sized history trivia and Qikipedia’s twitter account, run by the researchers for the brilliant TV show QI, contains a lot of interesting facts.
