Trends of the week

MANILA, Philippines -#NonLibelousTweet didn’t trend this week. Those satirical tweets that flooded my timeline upon the Supreme Court’s decision to uphold online libel apparently didn’t even so much as cause a ripple in social media. I don’t think this is because not enough people care about the repercussions of this ruling — a lot of them do, although not as much as they did when Sen. Tito Sotto first brought this to everyone’s attention, fresh off his plagiarism streak last year — but because sarcasm is apparently still not common in Philippine social media. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing — in fact, we may have stumbled into a loophole here, folks. Maybe irony and satire are still uncommon enough to sail over most people’s heads, especially the ones in government who are dumb enough to steal other people’s speeches. So I guess we’ll be fine. As you were, irony-proof Twitter.

Anyway, here are some that actually trended:

Cyber libel

Every week, random, non-topical hashtags litter the trends list, with one of them topping all other trends for days. #NangDahilSaTwitter is one of those hashtags. The accompanying tweets read like tributes to Twitter and the ways in which it allows people to express themselves freely. On any other week, this would sound generic and off-topic, but this was the week when online libel officially became a crime and trended, which means freedom of speech became fashionable again.

The ensuing uproar from the Supreme Court’s decision to uphold the libel provision in the Cybercrime Law is pretty consistent with the worldwide appeal for the decriminalization of libel, just as the SC ruling itself is consistent with the government’s almost century-long criminalization of libel. Nothing’s really new here, except that now it’s the Internet that’s involved, and so the once quiet outrage has morphed into a giant din. For decades, writers and journalists have faced the risks and responsibilities while calling for the decriminalization of libel. Now, those challenges are available to everyone, much like access to media. The playing field has officially been levelled.

Skyway 3

Carmageddon is upon us, Metro Manila! It’s Armageddon, except with cars. Get it? Because of all the vehicular traffic caused by the Skyway 3 project and stuff? Anyone? No?

“Carmageddon,” as a corny term coined to describe something totally unfunny, was originally used in California a couple of years ago when a similar road construction caused an insane amount of traffic in its major freeway and lameness among its catch-phrase-spewing public. This week, our already insane traffic situation just got even more insane, so the word is probably more accurate than it is cute. There is really little we can do as we keep descending the rings of Metro traffic hell and recycling dated American puns is basically a weary attempt at grasping for straws.

But the construction of the Skyway 3, which would connect the NLEX and SLEX, is supposed to be the one-step-backward prelude to its two-steps-forward relief of a decongested EDSA. And lord knows EDSA needs a lot of decongesting. The most clever traffic-related internet meme of the week wasn’t “Carmageddon” — it was a viral video of the improbably long queue to the MRT North Avenue station set to Daft Punk’s Get Lucky. Spanning the old Paramount Theater in EDSA corner North Avenue up to Philam Homes, the video also spanned the song’s intro up to the first chorus. When it gets to “we’ve come too far to give up…” the video officially approaches high comedy, albeit in a tragicomic way: EDSA traffic is so bad, people would actually rather line up for half an hour because they believe it is the more efficient alternative. So yeah, Skyway 3 can’t come fast enough.

TRO

After weeks of summer power outage threats from Meralco, the Supreme Court finally called their bluff and extended its Temporary Restraining Order on the proposed power hike. So now the nation holds its breath, collectively hoping that it is just indeed a bluff. Because it’s going to be really hot soon and summer has already become increasingly unbearable in the 21st century with electricity. It was one thing during the infamous power crisis of the early ’90s when summers were merely “hot” and not “post-nuclear apocalypse hot.” To not have access to electric fans and air-conditioning a month from now would probably be akin to being trapped in a sauna 24/7.

This gets my vote for the most underrated trend of the week because the prospect of trying to stay alive in 40-degree temperature with virtually no air is kind of a big deal. It seems like something that should be on top of the trends list and not #DanielPadillaForSoundCheckMNL. But that’s just me.

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Which of this week’s social media trends did you like? Tweet us @PhilStarSUPREME!