Day of Remedy

Year by year, the meaning of Idul Fitri has been shifting. Idul Fitri itself never loses its meaning. It's just the way of how people value the day. The ambience. Or at least, that's what I personally feel.

There was a time when I was a teenager where people were so eager to send happy Idul Fitri greetings along with their apology. The signal barrier due to overload server became a challenge which made the process even more interesting.

Then people became more creative in sending the greetings. They wrote poetrical messages. The not-so-creative people could also participate just by forwarding the message that they got.

As time goes by, people learned that sending those messages manually to all contacts in your phone books is tiring. Thanks to the cellphone vendor who invented broadcast message feature. People could send the greetings to everyone in their phonebook in one hit. It doesn't matter the receiver will read it or reply it or not. The point is, you have sent the greetings to everyone. Your job is done.

After social media became a trend, it also became the major media for people expressing their greetings and apology. People post greeting card and add massive tags the post. People started to hate broadcasted message, and later they hate the massive tagging too. They think it is not a sincere thing.

This year, seems like people are getting sick of the tradition (or it's just me being forgotten by my collegues) and stop doing those stuff above. I got no SMS at all. Broadcasted messages were still there though, from strangers. Only two massive tags. A few personal greeting texts.

I myself, didn't send any of those types of greetings. I did send personal texts to some closest friends. So, I thought people think the same way too which makes this year Idul Fitri a little bit quiet.