The Life & Times of Orkut

There was a time when Orkut was the centre of our lives. The sole purpose of our online existence seemed to be Orkut.

Scrapping people. Seeing what others are scrapping to other people. Scrapping people to ask why they are not scrapping. Scrapping people who were scrapping just to say that its nice that they are scrapping. Scrapping people to wish them on their 1000th Scrap, scrapping to congratulate them on their 2000th scrap. Scrapping to say hi, scrapping to say bye and scrapping to say just about everything. There was a phase when scraps had replaced all other forms of electronic communication - email, chatting etc. all included. Not to mention the race for milestone scraps like 500, 1000, 2000, 3000 and so on…

Then there was the contraption called the profile picture. This was what defined every opinion we had of our physical appearance. Pictures after pictures were clicked specifically so that they could be put on Orkut. What really mattered was that you looked good on your orkut profile picture even if you looked no better than Shrek in real life. The profile pic was our one chance to show the world how 'cool' we were, and nobody gave up on the opportunity.

Besides an exhibition of one's physical beauty, the profile pic and profile name also had another useful err… use. Showing off. If you had recently been abroad or bought a new mobile phone or found a new girlfriend, you just had to show it on your profile. So those who went to New York would promptly put up their picture in front of Statue of Liberty on the profile, those who visited Paris would have "Moulin Rouge Conquered" as their status name and those who were giving CAT would have some lame status name like "Belling the CAT" or something just so that the world could know. This would be followed by a flurry of scraps asking the person concerned about his/her latest exploits and with great pleasure he would spend hours replying to each scrap individually. And this was at a time when you couldn't even reply directly through scrapbook, and had to go through the painful process of first going on the profile then clicking on the scrapbook, then typing the scrap and then clicking submit. Just imagine, how much time we had back then.

Then there was online flirting which kept people hooked on to Orkut. On one hand were the respectable women we knew who were forced to change their profile pics and put their passport size photos in their place because everyday they would be bombarded with a million "wanna be my frand" requests from the online equivalent of roadside Romeos. On the other hand, were people like us who exploited this very weakness amongst the best of men and created fake profiles and helped facilitate online ‘relationships’, having an incredible amount of fun in the process. It was amazing to see how easily people fell prey to this. Anyone from DCE remember Gittii and Neha_Tulip85?! Sorry guys, It was just some of us from the hostel.


There was a time when the Orkut phenomenon was so huge that entire governments got involved in it. Our own government banned a few communities because they became a breeding ground for terrorists (ok, that’s a bit far-fetched, but you get the drift). Orkut had a role to play in murders, scandals and what not. It made front page news regularly and was the undisputed king of ‘social networking sites’.

I also remember the craze for Orkut Fans amongst people. The more the fans, the more awesome a person you were supposed to be. So people used all sorts of means to increase their fan count. Some of the standard techniques were “you become my fan, I become yours”, “I will write you a nice testimonial, will you be my fan” and many others. There were also communities on Orkut tricks which helped people increase their fan count, scrap count, sexy rating, cool rating and what not. It didn’t matter if you were a geeky programmer or an online loafer, at some level you always made use of these techniques or at least wanted to use them to ensure your Orkut profile was the envy of your neighbour’s.

In nutshell, Orkut was a cool place to hang out at. Communities, friends, fans, enemies, scraps, testimonials and all that came with Orkut kept people engaged and hooked on the phenomena for a substantial time as its creators had their cash registers ringing happily. But now, the times have changed.

Orkut is no longer the craze it used to be. My personal scraps don’t increase by more 1 or 2 in the whole week. The situation is the same with most of my friends I am sure. Often even these scraps are group scraps sent by people saying stuff like “Hi, What’s up?” or “Happy New Year” and not intended to communicate with people personally. Standard methods to attract Orkut traffic like changing your profile picture which till about a year back would guarantee a flurry of scraps don’t seem to work their magic any longer. People have started checking their Orkut accounts only as often as they get their hair cut because they know Orkut isn’t the same as what it used to be. The old-world charm is simply missing.

Well, for all practical purposes Orkut is heading towards a gradual but certain death. It’s anybody’s guess how long it will be before it ceases to exist permanently.

Good or bad, exciting or lame…whatever it was but Orkut was a phase in our lives we can’t really look back and ignore. It provided us hours of fun, excitement, moments of joy and even hope and despair.

Here’s to the wonder that was Orkut….

May its sourcecode rest in peace!