‘BBM Me’

A couple of months ago I destroyed any good vibes caused by deleting my LinkedIN account, and went and purchased a Blackberry. It was my biggest sell out to date.

Like Descantia, I’ve always had issues with blackberry’s. There’s something glib about their shiny black finish. There’re also infectious – just like the ring of Lord Sauron, the minute you buy or even start using a blackberry shadows start appearing under your eyes, and deep laughter sounds from hell. You start saying enchantments like ‘BBM me’, or manically typing rubbish onto a keyboard that could only have been designed for hobbits.

Before buying a blackberry I convinced myself I had good reasons – I brought a ghetto one on Facebook marketplace simply to BBM friends abroad. I understood that the core and absolute attraction of investing in such a device was that it facilitated international flirtation – with an executive finish. I even suspected that ‘BB’ users weren’t half as busy as they appeared to be… that the product screamed of low self-esteem, the desire to be somebody, the wish to be taken seriously.

But I had only scratched the surface. It beeps incessantly, making my twitter-facebook-phone-skype induced ADD even worse than it was before. It is not constructive – all smart phones have email now, and no one really uses BBM for matters of state. It’s too informal. BBM is a bourgeoisie device for engaging in trivialities: ‘did you get the groceries, what are you doing right now, why aren’t you answering, beep beep beep’.

It is a procrastination tool not a professional tool. It’s too instant. Too invasive. Too immediate – unlike text or SMS or twitter you’re essentially having a conversation with someone while ignoring the people around you… so its adds yet another level of distance to your surroundings, and to the people around you. At the same time, you can actually offend people by not buzzing them back instantly!

There’s something a little tribal about Blackberry’s - that’s why to add someone they give you a series of indecipherable medieval Dan-Brown like series of letters and numbers.

Here are mine:

20FDADA6

‘BBM me’