Category Archive for: digital platforms

komentaryo

Robbed #Halalan2022

A little over a week since the May 9 elections, and one understand why those on the side of democracy, Left, Liberal, and civil society, feel like we’ve been robbed.

In that sense, everyone’s performing like victims. Some are raising their fists against the irregularities on election day—dysfunctional vote counting machines, dysfunctional SD cards, long lines because of both, voters disenfranchised. Some have flexed their privilege: not going to help the poor anymore, not going to help nation anymore, bahala kayo sa buhay niyo. Some have shot back at actual people who they know voted for Marcos: magbayad kayo ng utang niyo! A day or two after elections, we heard of some small NGOs losing their funders—purportedly, people were not wanting to help the new government at all, and that is equated with not wanting to help the most vulnerable.

Many are spreading all sorts of disinformation about the president-elect, letting this permeate social media accounts in the way that rumors do. It is fueled, shared across platforms, thrown around Viber and messenger GCs for good measure. Never mind fact checking—it always feels good to have our perceptions proven right by any kind of information at all.

But I guess we want to forgive ourselves for these responses? Emotions are high. We thought we were going to win after all—especially if we believed surveys were unreliable. And now we are grasping at straws, picking the stories and narratives that serve our purpose, because it is the only way to keep the fire burning.

But at a time like this one, these responses, public as they are, do nothing but fuel this divide that already exists, a polarization that we now know is really about 14 million vs 31 million. And we need to understand that it doesn’t matter whether or not you think or believe polarization is happening—the fact is, it already is.

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kultura

Toni, Bongbong, history and #Halalan2022

Here’s the thing about Toni Gonzaga: she is a symptom as she is the condition itself, a very critical condition of lies, falsity, and disinformation at a time when murderers are condoned and the corrupt are shameless, when the plunder of resources has been normalized, as has the violation of basic rights, at a time when algorithms run our social media lives which, given this pandemic, is pretty much the life that we live.

Here’s the thing with Toni Gonzaga: this is ALL on her. She—as with other content creators, celebrities, influencers, you and me who do social media—is making decisions about what content to put out into the world, and SHE is solely responsible for those decisions. There is no one else she can blame for what is put on her accounts and her channels, there is no network to hide behind, no producer or manager to point a finger at.

At this point, we are seeing these personalities for who and what they are. And as Toni said: she’s got nothing to hide. And to some extent she’s never hidden that she is a Marcos loyalist—she’s just more shameless now, right on the month of Martial Law commemoration, in utter disregard for the thousands killed, the thousands more who live with its trauma, and the millions plundered by the Marcoses that all of us have suffered for.

Maybe this is the pandemic effect on her: I got nothing to hide, I got nothing to prove. Here, see me as a Marcos loyalist! I don’t give a flying f*ck. You only live once.

Here’s the thing with Toni Gonzaga: she knows, she has seen, how she will not be held accountable. (more…)

kultura

The Rappler-Pantene partnership (The beauty deception Part 2)

PROBABLY the worst kind of deception is the one cloaked in what should be the more respected labels of media and journalism. In the Philippines, a media organization commits the worst beauty deception. Because while it wants to discuss gender equality and women’s issues —which certainly it should—it does so with the help of . . . tadah! a beauty product.

It would be hilarious if it weren’t so irresponsible.

From product commercial to media project

This decision of Rappler to partner with the multinational shampoo brand Pantene in a #WhipIt series is highly problematic especially because it fails to discuss the more complex issues related to beauty and advertising, and being Pinay at this point.

This is not to say that a media enterprise and a beauty product cannot come together to cooperate on a project. But a purportedly critical and objective media enterprise cannot and should not do it, because it’s a finger pointed at its own biases for a particular product, its own perception of what is important given its partnership with a given shampoo brand.

Which is to say that were Pantene, in fact, a shampoo brand that celebrated diverse hair types and styles, that spoke not just of long straight shiny hair as the ideal, then Rappler giving it mileage by working with it wouldn’t be so bad. That would make it a media enterprise that intervenes in the dominant discourse of beauty, instead of reinforcing the unkind because un-natural look and feel of hair for a majority of Pinays.

Of course, Rappler might have been confused for a moment about Pantene. After all, they were kicking off from a commercial advertisement that got such mileage online and globally because it dared talk about how men and women continue to be treated differently, as proven by the condescending or judgmental labels against women when they do what men do: bossy versus boss, pushy versus persuasive, vain versus neat. In the end, the commercial asserts: Don’t Let Labels Hold You Back, Be Strong and Shine #ShineStrong #WhipIt.

That’s some ad copy. And that is all that it is. But Pantene will have us believe otherwise, and Rappler is just complicit in this product’s reconfiguration of woman power, all of which remain premised on its task of selling shampoo and the long shiny straight black hair that rarely exists naturally for the Filipina. (more…)

kultura

The beauty deception (Part 1)

I tell this story to any Pinay younger than me: there was a time when there were no billboards on EDSA, no advertisements for skin whitening or beauty clinics, no celebrities shamelessly selling everything from flawless skin to flat bellies, big boobs to silky straight hair.

This story is one that’s about difference, one that I hope will remind them of the superficiality of this current landscape of being Pinay, one that’s being enforced by mass media. It’s also always a reminder of how many steps back being woman in this country has taken, how many more steps back because of celebrity culture, and how many more steps into the dark ages because we are clueless about how to handle it.

Elsewhere in the world, the stand on fakery and Photoshopped photos, on whitening and plastic surgery is critiqued by celebrities, politicians, members of the media themselves. In this country, everyone’s in on deceiving generations of Pinays about beauty. (more…)