Trends of the week

MANILA, Philippines - Vox populi, vox dei” is usually invoked when trying to legitimize popular opinion, yet the phrase was first used disparagingly by Holy Roman Emperor Charlemagne regarding heeding the voice of the masses as if it were the voice of God.

Twitter is hardly the voice of the people — it’s really just the voice of a smidge of the world’s population that have Twitter accounts — so it’s definitely not the voice of God. If anything, it actually kills the voice of God, not in a Nietzschean sense, but from a purely solipsistic sense. People can’t imagine a world that is outside their heads, which is why they can’t stop talking about the specificity of their lives, which is why Twitter reads like a bipolar’s diary, railing against sexism one minute, then defending boybands the next, which explains a lot of what happened this week.

Yes, Twitter, all women have had enough

It’s accurate to say that #YesAllWomen was a response to the shootings in Santa Barbara perpetrated by a frustrated misogynist loser who wanted to avenge a lifetime of rejection from women. However, it’s more accurate to say that #YesAllWomen was a direct response to the common male defensive reaction of “not all men treat women wrong.” The first reason is topical, the second one is eternal. Misogynist killings don’t make the headlines every day, but defensive responses exist 24/7 in the patriarchy’s internal logic that makes violence against women possible in the first place. The running subtext of all #YesAllWomen tweets is basically: of course not all men are a**holes, but will all of you just shut up and listen to every woman who’s ever experienced sexual assault or attempted sexual assault, and maybe you can learn some actual insight beyond “not me?”

#YesAllWomen trended like wildfire because the notion that not all men are misogynists can never be as important as the fact that one out of six women is a victim of rape. The exasperation of women everywhere over the world’s impulse to gloss over these facts has reached fever pitch after the Santa Barbara killings, finding its perfect venue in Twitter. Hashtag activism fails when real on-ground solutions are warranted, but this particular problem is one of perception. Twitter is where stories are given face, where narratives are created. The #YesAllWomen stories we’ve read all week have been ignored for far too long: women constantly fearing for their safety, for being made guilty because of the clothes they wear, because they exist. A trending hashtag cannot change the way the world operates, but in this case, the ice has been broken. The voices of ordinary women have been aired in a global mainstream medium over the course of an entire week — an achievement no other generation can claim.

This week in stupid Twitter feuds: ‘No to Kpop’ vs. ‘#YesToKpop’

Pinoy Twitter has a fondness for Kpop. And by “fondness,” I mean “religious fervor.” Pinoy Kpop devotees are responsible for a quarter of Twitter trends on any given day, causing people who have no knowledge of the Korean boyband Exo, let alone their song titles, to collectively scream: “Who started #OverdoseDay and when did Twitter become a junkie den?”

So “No to Kpop” trending this week was both surprising and predictable. A backlash was perhaps bound to happen just because negative reactions are part of Internet physics: for every fanatical action, there is an equal, sometimes grossly disproportionate, hate-reaction.

Things took a really dumb turn when “Yes to OPM” trended, as if people have to choose sides in a war that doesn’t exist, as if Kpop and OPM are mutually exclusive, as if allegiances still matter in a musical landscape that looks more like the every-man-for-himself Wild West than “the Good War” Europe of the ’40s. So, in a Twitter debate on whose illegally-downloaded music matters more, the music doesn’t really win, in fact it has lost a long time ago and continues to lose to this day. Its consolation prize: a horde of noisy and hysterical fans that seem to spend more time trying to convince Twitter that their music is right than it does actually buying the music.

MRT chief sacked to the cheers of social media

Think of all the times the MRT has systemically tried to kill you. The long trail of sweat and despair that snakes its way around EDSA, the moshpit that is virtually every station, the defective coaches that either boil its passengers into moist, tenderized meat or smoosh them together like processed food. Think of all the crazy ways it sought to mitigate the ongoing disaster, the alternate express trains and articulated buses only providing commuters with more options to be late and maddeningly uncomfortable.

Think of how Al Vitangcol III left his post as MRT general manager this week Malacañang announcing that he was fired, then Vitangcol claiming he resigned, then later clarifying that, yes, he was relieved, but that he still resigned afterwards for whatever sense that made. The grounds for his dismissal actually boiled down to a choice between charges of nepotism and extortion, a fact that is at once comical and infuriating. If you think about it, they fit together: the MRT as an experience and an organization, both broken and burdensome. Unfortunately, replacing the driver isn’t going to make much of a difference as long as the train is still busted, and the railways still crooked.

One Direction fans are stoners, too

Pop stars, particularly boy bands, can do no wrong in the hormonally-clouded eyes of their loyal fans. Case in point: when Zayn Malik and Louis Tomlinson of One Direction were caught smoking marijuana on video, Twitter skipped the stages of anger and denial and went straight to #zouispassmethatblunt. “Zouis” is the collective name of the two, because their fans apparently grew tired of choosing one and just decided they were one person. When the Internet grants you those god-like powers, you accept the great responsibility of condoning everything short of heroin addiction.

If you’re keeping score, we went from reggae legend Peter Tosh singing Legalize It, to Linkin Park’s Chester Bennington referencing marijuana smoking at the MTV Video Music Awards, to Miley Cyrus actually smoking a joint at the MTV Video Music Awards, to this. Marijuana is getting lamer by the decade. And somehow, it’s still not legal.

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Tweet the author @ColonialMental.