Tag Archives: content creation

komentaryo

Tiktok and Surveys: The Dutertelenovela and political content

When Pulse Asia’s March surveys—both for Senatorial Elections and Trust Ratings of top government officials—came out, none of it was a surprise. Instead, what it was to me was a by-product of what I had been seeing on social media. And no not my own social media account and certainly not on my algorithm. Neither is it on Facebook or YouTube.

Instead, I’m talking about Tiktok, using an account that I use solely to watch Philippine political content since November 2021, when I realized that more and more people were on the app, watching content I wasn’t seeing on my own algorithms. It was on Tiktok that I saw the deluge of content that was rewriting Martial Law history, reframing those years into a time of peace, order, prosperity, which made the Marcoses the victims of people power that kicked them out in 1986. By the time the 2022 election results were in, all of it made complete sense relative to what I was seeing on Tiktok.

I am reminded of this now, in relation to the way the Tiktok content on the Dutertes have been shifting since March 11, when the patriarch was brought to the International Criminal Court (ICC) in The Hague, to face charges of committing crimes against humanity through his drug war. By the time the Trust Ratings and Senatorial Survey came out, all of it made sense, too.

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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…)