THE BLUE TICKS OF DIGITAL SNOBBERY

Let’s say you miss person X and decide to send them a message on Whatsapp. A few minutes later person X receives your text as evidenced by the blue ticks on the corner of your message. You eagerly await a response from this X, person X, as you watch your favorite medieval drama while sipping masala tea and chomping down a brown chapatti. The drama soon ends and you have to go to sleep for tomorrow is Monday and you don’t want to spend three hours in traffic like a Rongai local.

You get to work the next day and still nothing. At lunch, you see person X is online, probably chatting it up with everyone else but you. I’m sure they saw the text. Night comes and you wonder if the blue ticks really mean that the recipient has read the incoming message. Heck you go though the trouble of rechecking what the blue ticks means. Better be sure than jump into conclusions and get your cholesterol high.

After days of scanning through your messages for a response you still have nothing. On the weekend, you bump into person X at Koroga or Blankets and Wine and somewhere beyond the expected pleasantries they hit you with “I thought I replied...I’ve been so busy” or even, “I don’t know how I didn’t see your message.” If you can relate, you too are a victim of digital snobbery.

It’s rather embarrassing to go through. You imagine person X walking around with their nose high, bragging to their friends on how much action they get on their chats, walls, inboxes and timelines. You soon realize you may or may not have the power to demand an explanation. If you do ask, you look petty or desperate. If you don’t, you sentence yourself to a big loss and give person X the upper hand. What’s worse is this - the larger your ego, the harder it is to make this decision.

I hate to break it to you but there is no such thing as “I thought I replied”, no such thing as “I don’t know how I didn’t see your message.” These are empty phrases designed to assuage ones ailing ego. Not that person X cares so much as to worry themselves with the condition of your soul but out of a moderate sense of civility, they let you down, softly.

To the victims of this inevitable vice, I feel for you. Things were a lot more direct in the days of old. It wasn’t too hard to guess that someone was just not interested in your words. There were no blue ticks to let you know how important (or not) you were to someone. There were few grey areas that were left to your hyperactive powers of deduction and imagination. Not like today, when silence means many more things than a reply. Damn those blue ticks.