What the Facts Say: A Sampling of Online Advocacy Behavior
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?
Maybe this time
GMA News: PAGASA: Weather clear for November 9 asteroid ‘sighting’.
It seems silly to take the word of a hit-or-miss weather bureau and a daily known for dipping into tabloid fodder. Yet as I while away in an office the end of the world seems all the more likely. Why not now, after all? We’ve survived plagues, technological breakdown, forces of nature…what’s one asteroid to end it all?
What would you do? A friend asked. Simple, I replied. I’d stop cramming. I’d finally write the poems I’ve been meaning to write, that treatment I’ve meant to finish, exorcise those scenes that have lived in my head since I was 12. I’d put them in a little tin box: the kind that seems to survive meltdowns. Whatever lives after the fall will be sure to find it.
Then I’d wander. Wonder what Manila would look like through graduation goggles? Traffic must seem so wonderful. It’s like a time paradox: funny how life goes on while you’re stuck in place. Trash would be so nice, evidence of a time it was relevant, when it smelled nice, when it was of use.
If I had the cash, hopping around Asia as a grand finale also sounds sublime. I’d be Lara Croft rolling through the ruins of Angkor, chasing after my own shadow. I’d be in search of the perfect pad thai and thai coffee.
Maybe I’d end it all at the topmost level of Borobodur in that deceptive quiet, napping against a stupa.
But no, home would be the best place to wait for The End. Exhausted after all that traveling, all that writing, with the blasted pets stepping all over me as I collapse into bed. Just a little extra to the ordinary.
Where will you be when the asteroid hits?
To Life, to Art – Badong Bernal
I never worked with Sir Bernal, but it was hard not to know of him.
He designed the set for “Comfort Women” made out of bamboos. The lead actress would be bruised every time they had to go through her rape scene. Director Missy Maramara asked if there was any way to keep her from bruising. Bernal’s retort, “Let her adjust to the set.”
He never hobbled with a cane. He strutted, with confident strides down Gonzaga Hall. Rumor has it, he was sighted without his cane once. Why? “Style.” He said simply.
It was also for that reason he put huge lights in the wings during a ballet performance. Never mind that dancers exited and entered from there and had to watch their step. It was an inconvenience yes, but there was no better way to put light on the full form of the body. You could see it even if you were seated in the last seat of the last row of CCP Main Theater.
For Bawat-Tao (Everyman), he saw a see-saw to describe the delicate balance of life sought by Everyman. Say what you will about Metropolitan Theater Guild’s Midsummer Night’s Dream but most of its magic, I feel, would not be possible without Badong.
He was old-school: he screamed at people till they got it right. He even threw his cane at students. They say, the more he screamed at someone, the more promise that someone actually had. Sure enough, a blockmate that got the brunt of his temper sought him to be her thesis adviser. She did well.
Some other things told to classmates:
“Never allow yourself to be mediocre!”
“To create, you must learn to destroy.”
Difficult lessons that even I take pains to learn, over and over again.
I cried when I found out he had passed. I couldn’t understand why. “Because he is an institution. He’s one of those that made it possible to actually work in theater.” says a good friend, Mahar.
Sure enough, in his passing, there’s a change in the air. There is loss, yet, but then there’s the sense of so much more to come. After all, it’s a vibrant year for local theater.
Besides, another friend quipped, “The good Lord needed someone to manage all the Souls in Soul Parade day. Who else but.”
I can imagine him dressing up the people we love in those rich, Asian-inspired robes.
Love and light, Badong Bernal. R.I.P.
The king is dead, long live the king
I don’t believe you’re dead, Steve Jobs.
I believe that you’re somewhere out there hanging out with Michael Jackson. I imagine that you’re both stuck in limbo similar to Judgement City but for visionary VIPs. One of you, maybe even both of you will be sighted in the oddest places; in diners, soup, truck stops, or simply backstage.
Go in peace, Steve Jobs.
A note in Z: Zsa Zsa vs. Zombadings
I can’t help but compare Zombadings to the Zsa Zsa Zaturnah adaptations.
What I liked about Zsa Zsa Zaturnah the graphic novel is how it showed a rare vulnerability through Ada, the boy who would be Zsa Zsa. That kind of vulnerability, the quiet contemplation of what it means to be gay was lost in the slapstick of the musical and movie adaptations. It’s enjoyable, but I came out of it feeling that it seemed be the only way to be gay: just be sing out loud silly.
I feel that Zombadings learned from the flaws of the Zsa Zsa adaptations. The camp is very much there, from the minute Roderick Paulate casts his curse upon Remington, to a wink-nudge at Robot Unicorn, to the “gaydar”. At the heart of it is Remington himself, a boy forced to learn a hard lesson on being careful who you pick on, and what it really means to be a man. This is a film I’d show as a way of homophobic intervention.
This time, if all they see are zombies, it’s not the film’s fault.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NaWWi6oCw8E]
Tarush! Catch Zombadings now on its last run at cinemas around the Philippines.