We beg to differ.
A few years ago an incident in an LRT station that involved a video recording of an irate girl berating a guard went viral and was immediately devoured by ‘netizens’ with sadistic glee. It showed a relatively young woman speaking to the guard in a voice a few octaves higher than the regular conversational tone…
Read More “A glimpse at our participation and the culture of online shaming” »
Michelle Alfonso and Janet Ricabo, the “Pabebe” Girls, rose to fame a couple of weeks back after a video they uploaded onto the Net, what else, went “viral”. The video wasn’t much of a production piece. It was just a rant clip with two young teenage girls asserting their right to be who they are….
Read More “Youth in the Philippines suffer from a lack of good role models” »
There is much irony surrounding the whole circus over the “indecent” video, allegedly of Filipino teen star Andrea Brillantes, that went “viral” last week. On one hand are the justice crusaders calling people to respect the privacy of Brillantes (who, as of this writing remains tight-lipped). Echoing the sentiment of civil society, veteran journalist Elizabeth…
Read More “Life lessons Andrea Brillantes could learn from fellow actress Maria Ozawa” »
The Net is on fire in the Philippines over the “viral” spread of a personal video allegedly of Filipino showbiz celebrity Andrea Brillantes. Brillantes, star of the hit TV drama series Annaliza, is only 12 years old. But this fact does not seem to stop online perverts from downloading and sharing the video. As of…
Read More “Andrea Brillantes: Latest victim of social media’s dark underbelly” »
Recent events have, yet again, highlighted the embarrassing way with which Filipinos and the government they elected to lead them are desperately scrambling to extricate themselves from systemic poverty after decades of misguided “development” approaches and serial promise breaking. Like many many previous presidents before him, Philippine President Benigno Simeon ‘BS’ Aquino III went on…
Read More “The futility of begging for foreign investment when your country sucks” »
Again we encounter another instance of the violent nature of Filipinos — a people expats have for so long warned one shouldn’t cross as they (1) don’t fight fair and (2) hold deadly unshakable grudges. Last night saw the murder of George Anikow, a former US Marine officer and spouse of a US Embassy staff…
As my colleague Ilda pointed out, Filipinos seem to be averse to speaking out. This may seem to be a counterintuitive assertion to make, given how Filipinos pride themselves with a tradition of flamboyant political activism, tacky spectacle in the way they practice freedom of speech in their mass media, and voluminous undifferentiated chatter in…
Read More “Filipino viral videos: mere modern symptoms of a very old cultural dysfunction” »
So I finally saw the “Amalayer†video posted on YouTube and I just had to ask myself, what the heck was the big deal? Why did this video go viral? It’s not even funny and there’s no way to tell why the girl, Paula Jamie Salvosa went ballistic towards the security guard at the LRT…
Read More “Filipinos who cyber-bullied #Amalayer girl showed worse behaviour than her” »