Socially Inept

A few weeks ago, after two long and stressful months on a case, during which she literally spent days and nights at the office, Amanda decided she needed a quick weekend trip away.

Saffy sucked in her breath, her impressive bosom inflating to maximum capacity. “Hello, I need a break, too! I have been so stressed preparing the papers for the board meetings, everyone has been yelling at me, and if I see one more Powerpoint presentation, I’m going to barf!”

“Why don’t we all go away, then?” Amanda said.

Which is how we found ourselves in Cempedak, a gorgeous little island resort just off Bintan. For two days, we slept in late, lay by the pool, and decided what to have for dinner after waking up from our nap. The entire time, none of us touched our phones, except for Amanda taking one Instagram post of our three sets of toes by the pool.

            By the time we got back to Singapore, slightly sunburnt and a little hungover, and turned on our phones, that post had generated 189 Likes. There were also eleven comments and without exception, all were along the lines of “Wah, you have such a great life!”, “Wah, I want your life! You’re always on holiday!” and “Wah! No need to work, issit?”

            Which, for some reason, really bothered Amanda.

            “Isn’t this so irritating? I’ve been working 19-hour days for two months and eating breakfast, lunch and dinner at my desk. I take two days off, post one picture, and everyone thinks all I do is sit by the pool! Seriously?” she asked Saffy on FaceTime, during a quick 10-minute lunch break between meetings.

            Saffy sniffed. “Welcome to social media. People only see the good things and not the crap in our lives. Stella in my office told me it must be nice to always be on holiday. If there’d been a staircase nearby, I’d have pushed her down it!”

            “Haiyah, is liddat one, lah!” Sharyn said later that night when she and Saffy came over to Amanda’s office with da-bao from Lau Pa Sat. “Is social media, what! People, hor, dey only see happy picture, but dey don’t see how luan your life is before you take picture and after you post picture! What to do?”

            Saffy said she doesn’t believe Kim Kardashian’s life is at all luan. “She has people who do things for her. Like, you think Victoria Beckham actually made David’s birthday cake? No, she’s too busy designing fabulous dresses. She has people who buy birthday cakes!”

            “Yes, but I think Sharyn’s point is that even Victoria Beckham has crap in her life which she doesn’t show,” Amanda said. Sharyn nodded sagely, pleased to be actually quoted in a conversation. “Imagine the kind of stress she’s under designing her collections. Literally, the whole world is watching her on Instagram!”

            “Well, not literally the whole world,” Saffy said, slowly chewing her chai dau kwai. “God, I’m so tired, I can’t even chew.”

            I’d been day-dreaming the entire time and now suddenly zoned back into the conversation. “I just had a brilliant idea for a new app!” I said, sitting up straight.

            “You’re not still going on about your custom-made Hello Kitty coffins, are you?” Saffy said.

            I waved my hands. “It’s even better! You know how Instagram is just filled with beautiful pictures of beautiful people doing beautiful things and how everyone gets jealous?”
            Amanda and Saffy exchanged looks. Sharyn stared at me, with rapt attention.

            “Well,” I said, “how about an app where you only post the crappy stuff in your life?”

            Amanda frowned. “Like…”

            “Like that bunion toe. Or baby vomit all over your Ferragamo shoes. The rejection letter from your dream job. Your puffy face and red eyes from all your crying after your breakup with your cheating boyfriend! Pimples! Your living room after your dog has chewed it all up…”

            Silence descended on the room.

            “Huh,” Saffy said eventually. “That actually sounds like…”

            “And…and…we’d call it…wait for it…Instacrap!”

            Amanda sighed. Her eyes shone. “Oh my God, that’s just genius!”

            Encouraged, I went on. “And the corporate tagline would be ‘Instacrap…Feel Bad’.”

            Sharyn pursed her lips. “Hah? Liddat can make money, meh?”

            “Amanda’s right, Shazz,” Saffy told Sharyn. “It’s genius! I can feel it in my waters. People are sick at looking at how happy other people are! They want to rejoice in other people’s unhappiness! Sign me up!”

            Amanda says this time next year, we could be on our yacht, posting happy pictures on Instagram. “For real, this time!” she says.