What one ‘likes’ or ‘heart’ on tumblr reveals a lot about a person.
Some loose observations based on ‘Face the Facts‘ likes and trends:
-It is true: it helps to have a major blogger or figure vouch for your blog. The surge in popularity of Face the Facts would not be possible without the help of Carlos Celdran, who very kindly retweeted the url.
-A good chunk of its initial followers are Filipino teens, about as young as 15 or 16 years old. They tend to like or reblog the sex myths. Before parents freak out at how young they are, I think it’s a telling sign on what parents and even schools should be telling their kids. Be glad that the kids found the blog, imagine if they ended up in an unmoderated chatroom instead.
-A sad fact I was forced to face: the greater disasters will not be reblogged. A post on a local maternity hospital where it’s 3 patients to a bed went largely ignored, while a post on the poor talking about the RH bill ends up on tumblr radar. The post on RH Bill not being passed this year got as few as 3 hearts and only 1 reblog. This is a more interesting finding: generalizations have some kind of impact. It’s fine if you’re talking about the poor, but it’s another entirely if you have details on how it directly affects them. One is easier to digest than the other. Consider this article which touches on the point: What motivates people to give to charity by the authors of ‘Freakonomics’.
As for the dead reaction on the RH Bill dying – I wonder if it’s largely due to that newsbit overshadowed by the fuss on Gloria Arroyo’s medical treatment. Or have we simply given up?
What do you think?