I Hate Filipino Culture: http://internetjaywalking.blogspot.com/2007/07/i-hate-filipino-culture.html
Almost exactly 5 years ago today, I looked at my blog counter
and was quite surprised when I saw that one of my articles gained around 50k
views in less than 24 hours and was still gaining views at a pretty fast rate.
Then I checked facebook and friends were saying that one of my articles was
being shared everywhere on social media and getting pretty strong reactions. It
was my first taste of what virality was like. The attention was very flattering
but also quite frightening. Along with the overwhelming positive reactions, I
was also getting a few negative ones. And we all know how mean the internet can
be. I wrote under my pen name “Jay
Walker” but I wasn’t entirely anonymous. I had a photo of my mug on the blog
which, according to some of the commenters, was quite douchey and could serve
as a “before” photo for a derma ad (I’m paraphrasing). I also saw someone write
“liquid sosa” at least once in the comments, one my many nicknames back in
gradeschool, so I’m pretty sure someone from that part of my life recognized
me.
I’m not the type who enjoys having the spotlight directly on
me. I like having it on my creative work but not on me as a person. I didn’t
delete the profile photo which everybody had already seen anyway but I tried to
maintain anonymity as much as i could. I deleted the links to some of my blogs
which contained more information and photos of me. And I changed my name on fb
to my real name for a while so no one could find me. I did it because I dreaded
the influx of haters on my social media accounts but after reading a couple of
negative comments, I quickly got desensitized to it and I didn’t really get
affected anymore. I changed it back to Jay walker after a couple of days.
Back in 2007 when I originally wrote the entry, facebook was
not as big as it is today. Social media
was plurk and Friendster. When you went viral back then, you went viral within
the blogging community, maybe you’d get mentioned in a few forums, have a few
memes. It’s nothing like what it is today where something could spread like
wildfire through facebook or twitter. When I first posted it on my tabulas blog
back in 2007, it got a few comments and reactions but it wasn’t until 2013 when
people shared it on facebook and twitter that it went viral.
The fact that it spread the way it did was surprising because
although the title was a bit clickbait-y, the body of the article was not
written, as some of the commenters said, in a way that could be easily
understood by the masses. In the age of memes and road rage videos, articles
that are several paragraphs long rarely get viral anymore, especially ones that
contain words and phrases like “purveyor of ignorance” and “permeates”. There are so many ways that one could go viral
on the internet. One could easily end up like Cristopher Lao or the Amalayer
girl, barbequed to a crisp by internet trolls. I’m glad that I didn’t go viral
that way. Perhaps it was also because of the nature of the article that it avoided
the worst of internet trolls. Although there were a few immature comments and
some that were bordering on violent, they were rare. A lot of the reactions to
it were articles in themselves. And even some of the replies that were critical
of it were also thoughtfully written.
If I had written it today, it definitely wouldn’t sound as
angry. Aging has taken some of the fire and idealism out of me. I would change
or add a few things. But I think it still remains timely. Those who were
critical of the article have accused it of being homophobic because they
thought I said something negative about people who dressed in drag. I
explicitly used the word “entertainers” I was talking about entertainers, who
aren’t even gay in the first place, dressing in drag and acting like fools sake
of a few laughs. There are plenty of those characters in Philippine television.
That, I think is promoting homophobia and could even be interpreted as an outright
mockery of the their community.
I wasn’t quite sure what to do with the attention back then
but looking back at it now, I’m filled with a sense of pride. For a brief
period of time, I was able to move people’s thoughts and emotions en masse with
my words, which is the aspiration of any writer or those aspiring to be.
====++====
“I Hate Filipino Culture” first went viral on april 2013 and
then went viral again on january 2014. Thanks to everyone who shared it and posted
reactions to it.
Some of the posts that I could find on twitter: https://twitter.com/search?q=internetjaywalking.blogspot.com&src=typd
Some of the lengthier blog reactions that I found through
google:
Matteo gudicelli posted it twice on twitter
Unfortunately I can’t figure out how to search old posts on
facebook but thank you to everyone who shared it.