It’s a Monday and, for us supposedly politically-aware folk on the Net, the start of another week tackling the issues of national consequence. We get out there issuing tweets and publishing Facebook posts to initiate debate and discussion around the important stuff that make and break nations (and win and lose elections).
A noble undertaking, right? But does all that really matter to the average Filipino?
Not if you look at what’s “trending” on Twitter. We focus this analysis of topics that matter on Twitter because Twitter supposedly hosts a more intelligent discourse than Facebook. There is likely some truth in that claim seeing how easily basketball games between chi chi universities readily “trend” on that platform. That’s an indicator that students of elite universities in the Philippines wield significant influence over the statistics that get sucked into “trending” reports.
But therein that quick-and-dirty analysis the demographic that inhabits the Philippine Twitterverse lies the tragedy that is its intelligentsia. One would expect a lot more of a social media community seemingly accounted for by a significant number of elite university students. A lot more.
Instead, that kiss between Aquino and What’s-His-Name in the film Glorious is, according to today’s “trending” stats is what this community is chattering about. It is no wonder that Philippine society remains an intellectually-bankrupt one. It’s university grads consistently disappoint with their low-brow obsessions and utterly unoriginal and un-innovative “intellectual” pursuits.