I don’t know where the hell they get the courage to tell youth most bizarre stories with blinking an eyelid. You, the listener, has no way of knowing of they were telling you the truth or just playing hide and seek. But they know it. They know it when they tell you that it was something that wouldn’t happen any time soon.
I see a social media post of this shoe shop which seems to have in its stock quite interesting designs and for very reasonable prices too. Seeing all the brands they flash on the screen you would think it just be quite a big store with all the signs of people who really know the ins and outs of modern business practices. So I can tell you this was a chance you wouldn’t want to miss giving the shock you almost always get when they tell you in some shop the price of the a pair of shoes you set your eyes upon was, breath in, sixteen thousand birr! No there is no proofreading mistake here. It was only recently we heard of a sixteen thousand pair of shoes in a shop that was anything but impressive. In fact some of us have practically stopped entering shops which practically look like they were some VIP stuff.
So it’s no wonder that you are drawn to any advert or article about low-priced and also well designed shoes. “Wonderful! That was the very story I was looking for!” I and a friend decided to go check for ourselves. Maybe, if we are tempted enough at the real sight we might even buy a pair or two. The building the shop was said to be located wasn’t hard to find; finding the actual shop however was in all the odd ways a little harder. It was supposed to be on the very first floor. Well we were on the first floor! And the first floor doesn’t seem to have more than four or five shops which do justice to your sights. ‘Unimpressive’ would be an understatement.
So that large, spacious shoe shop we saw in that social media posting was nowhere to be seen. However tucked under the stairs winding upwards was this cubicle-like shop with a few shoes displayed in no particular arrangement. Through the glass partition we could see a very young girl practically plastering herself into a corner. We decided to go in. There were maybe thirty or forty pairs of shoes and that was all! What about what looked hundreds in the social media video! We asked the young girl if it was that very shop and she said it was.
It is astounding. Where in the world do this people get the courage to make such misleading claims and on the social media of all places. I mean wouldn’t you worry that once your reputation, if there was any, would be smeared and there was they could do to prevent it. I these days once reputations are smeared, once names are dragged through the dust little if anything could be done to fix the dents and slashes.
Despite all talks of bad behavior and sly people taking others into unexpected problems it still seems that we’re very easily fooled and wake up only once some damage is done. The trend of claiming to do what we actually don’t and can’t do, or provide services that don’t happen in reality is not limited to the smaller shops and similar entities. Even in the most unique of places, places which you would equate with excellence and platinum-level performance the unexpected hits you without you even suspecting it.
For its all positive sides which you admire and make use of the social media could also be a den of the unbecoming, unholy, uncivilized and unsocial places. Yes it depends on how each and every uses the platform. Maybe that is one place where you certainly reap what you sow. We have seen people we know being easily isled and taken for the ride by fictitious claims and promises.
The problems appear in all forms. You have seen the advert of some recreation place where they claim of customer treatment nothing below five-star level though they aren’t officially designated as five-star. “Aha!” you say. Five-star treatment for three-star prices is the most wonderful that could happen to anyone in these in times of tighter budgets and thinner wallets. So one early evening you make your way to the place for a couple of hours of real recreation and serenity, which you need and highly deserve. Well when you make your way in the place indeed has that ambience and sense of soothing you don’t find in many places. Well, it is going to be a wonderful early evening will all the cells and nerves replenished for the tasks of the rest of the week.
You order some dish you always wanted to taste and haven’t yet done so. Friends have told you once you taste the dish you’d be in it for life! Very tempting, especially it coming from friends who have no reason to feed you any info they don’t believe in and haven’t proven for themselves. When the dish comes it seems to be a sort of rewriting moment. It wasn’t as appetizing as it appeared in that social media multi-color video.
We hear about all kinds of hoaxes and outright criminal behavior on the social media by those who are out there to do anything and everything to satisfy their own needs and fantasies. Many of the foreign travel, the 10,000 birr a day paying vacancies and such adverts and messages are pure deceptions meant to prey of the insecurity of the weak and those for whom life has become a sort of a living hell. People who find themselves in such situations would grab at anything, and everything they would think would pull them out of the depths.
The sad facts is that somehow the swindlers and the dyed-in-the-wool criminals of our world seem to be enjoying their day in the sun on the vast and no-bounds expanse of the social media in this practically messed up world of ours.
The Ethiopian Herald December 15/2014