Should the Singapore Media or Culture be shot first?
I mean seriously, don't you guys have better stories or issues to discuss? Blogs? Seriously? BLOGS ARE WHAT YOU HAVE TO TALK ABOUT!? I mean, for fuck's sake, there's so much political mayhem going on around internationally, and you want to focus the public youth on... ON BLOGS?! Are you fucking kidding me? Okay, I won't comment on Girls out Loud, as I've never watched it. I don't know who the bloggers are, I think I may have read them years ago, but shrug. So if they come across my blog, I'm sorry my blog's shit and obscure, and I'm not judging you. I'm just wondering why the Singaporean public focuses so much on this. Surely there are more important things to worry about?
And you know, it kinda disgusts me that the media is so focused on bloggers here, I saw a commercial awhile back. "These girls have a blog, SHOULD THEIR PARENTS KNOW?" Why, so they can do a better job than the government at silencing us? Should my parents know, my ass. Come on, seriously. How old are the average bloggers, like 16 or something? They're already legal to have sex, why shouldn't they be allowed to post naked pictures of their own body? It's fucking stupid right, I'm old enough to fuck, too young to smoke, to drive, to sign a legal document. But I can spread my legs. Sounds to me like some legal tactic so someone somewhere can screw 16 year old girls, satire implied.
Why should I need my parents permission to write whatever I feel like on a blog? I mean, seriously, why should it matter. We are not living in a virtual kampung (village), which is exactly how we're behaving. Twittering about what our neighbours have done, as long as we're in a different country. I guess we should be happy, it's always been enforced in my secondary school that the kampung mentality was great. The people were, bergotong royong, which means that they lived in a community and helped each other. What everyone always failed to neglect while they were happily reminiscing their childhood living in squalid conditions, was that as long as you weren't part of the collective, you were shunned. Especially in our culture, where the older generation demands respect, their voices are louder than our rebellious nature. Then you have to think, where do the kids live, property's so expensive here, income is ridiculously low. Only the extremely determined make it outside without running home soon.
But I digress, so should the media be shot, or should our kampung culture that seems bloody ridiculous to me. Okok, I know it's not ridiculous to the people who agree with it, but I'm not you, and I'm not forcing you to read my blog. It is said that modern society learns through the media what culture is, instead of solely through interaction with other beings. This makes you wonder if society is what makes the media, or whether media makes the society. Either way, I think it should be shot to hell. I still don't understand, why care so much about websites made by kids too young to vote, as if we have much say about what goes on in administration anyway. Is it just because you feel like you're losing a minute amount of your all-encompassing power?
Anyway I still think it should all be shot. We're supposed to be urbanised, but we're still reveling in our kampung roots. Is this our culture, or what we're meant to be, or what we like to be? I have so, so much more to bitch about this, but I will reserve it for another day.
7 comments:
This is their way of diluting the effects of the blogging. Notice that they did not concentrate on the political blogs. They are trying to demonise the blogging experience as a youth fave and not serious stuff. BUT we know that there are really good and sensible bloggers commenting the political scene of Singapore. They are trying to brainwash the general public into believing the insignificance of blogging. They are running scared because for the first time, the bloggers can see through the fog and make good analysis of their policies. MSM is so much like a loud hailer, and nobody is trying to listen to them. They are trying very hard.
Blogging allows people not to believe everything MSM presented. This new media is like life, you cannot really put it out completely...
You know, admittedly, being in sydney most of the time I did not know too much on this topic but commercials of girls out loud and is it still called talking point? It didn't really occur to me that they were diluting the effects. From what I hear from everybody, the most famous blogger here, what's her name... Xiexie? Whatever, is a really intelligent girl. I thought that if they were highlighting her then they were just making a big deal of the political stuff people had to say.
Although I would have to disagree, I do not think that for the first time bloggers have seen the light. In my opinion, there have been a number of people who are informed, it's just that they were too afraid or unable to voice out their opinions. It's just that now the government has a larger than projected number, and the more information spreads... I do think it's stupid that the media would put so much interest into it, as it would just make pre teens and the more easily influenced to think blogging is cool and put more emphasis on it. Thanks for your comment.
I have too much to write in response to this. A brief comment, unrelated to the future post I will make
The problem with thinking of the news as something that is supposed to inform citizens of the important issues in a country...is that the news is not and has never been about that.
It is a money-making enterprise that shows whatever the market demands, which is usually footage from the latest bomb.
Actually, I dont think most of the political mayhem that you describe is really important news. Another bomb in Iraq doesnt really change things that much, relative to a detailed analysis of a new EU policy, a free trade agreement, a new appointment in a Supreme court, a new technology.
In a perfect world, the news would show a variety of different things, not all of which are related to politics.
Political mayhem was just an example. GAWD. And I think it's really shallow that an attack is considered unimportant. What, it is? I mean it's shallow at the same time for the viewer only to care about the amount of gore he gets to see, as compared to sitting up and wondering...
You have to admit that political crap does influence our lives too. A certain judge appointment may mark a change in leniency, a new agreement could mean better economy. (shut up lance, i know nothing of economics, explain this to me another day when your ass is back in sydney) Shrug, I like how al qaeda people are going into somalia though. That's funny, bomb one country, they just flee to the next. Seems a more logical thing to do than stay in a sand hut. I know this does not mean anything but I was just thinking of it.
I just don´t think that such bombings do much to alter the course of history. Politics, I would say, is...only slightly important in terms of changing the world, and terrorism, while it may be big in the news, is almost a drop in the ocean on the overall political scene.
How does it change history, if, say, 200 people die in Bali and Bali drops off tourists´ radars? Makes people in Bali poorer, which diminishes their influence, causes much suffering locally. That´s about all.
You couldn´t say...well...the Bali bombings really changed things, in the way that you might say the assissination of Archduke Ferdinand did, the invention of the WWW did, or the bombing of Pearl Harbor did.
(Obv, one of those killed might have gone on to change the world. I am ignoring this, and nitpickey "butterfly effects"..if I didn´t, my decision of whether or not to go to work today could have huge consequences for the world of 10 years time, perhaps)
In 3 years, there have been probably >500 bombings by Iraqis in Iraq. Analysing the big picture, there will be a simple outcome of what kind of government emerges from this mess and how Sunni-Shiite relations are (an outcome not really influenced by one, two, or twenty bombings, especially when enmity has existed for ages), and a government that deals with other nations...and only such large-scale changes could be considered significant. So the newsreaders can continue to report 20 people killed here and there in Iraq on any given day, but none of these events individually has very much impact at all.
There are more variables, of course.
Bombings matter less if they happen to people less capable of, and/or less willing to respond...(which is why September 11 altered history more than 100 bombs in Somalia have, and why that siege on a school in Beslan, Russia, which killed 200+ schoolchildren is now entirely irrelevant outside the framework of the Russia-Chechnya conflict, and only a tiny aspect of that conflict ).
Bombings also don´t matter unless there is extremely popular, and very very powerful support behind them. Which is why the Oklahoma city bombing didn´t have any real affect on the world, neither did the ETAs bombings in Spain, the thousands of suicide bombers in Israel in the last 5 years, the environmentalists´ various bombings around the US etc etc. Most political struggles simply do not matter
And it hardly matters how many are killed, at least until you get in to very large numbers, eg Hiroshima a-bomb. Even then, I could imagine a world that is basically identical to the present one, even if, say, the nation of Cyprus (population in millions) entirely disappeared off the map due to carpet bombing.
I could say a lot more, but I´m too tired. And high off my tits.
Once again, missed the point. Said shallow, consider moral viewpoint on it. I know it's true what you say, but it's still repugnant.
Once again, missed the point. Said shallow, consider moral viewpoint on it. I know it's true what you say, but it's still repugnant.
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