Tag: people

What’s the point of reality television?

If there’s one thing that drives the television industry, it’s our persistent craving for potato chips and late night binges. We’ve contained the meaning of entertainment to a single idiot box from which comes forth loud music and wailing that we glare at with widening eyes and dropping jaws.

Come to think of it, we’ve become so reliant on television shows that we no longer have time to rise from the couch to watch the sun set. We no longer have the motivation to wake up at dawn, and we don’t even have the simple sense to leave the couch for water. Why should we, when Bay Watch is on and the roommate is passing by the fridge?

Reality television has made us lazy. We’ve run headlong into a devil that’s reality. Not trying to overdo the graphic here, but television shows nowadays do more harm that the good they claim to do. Not only do we spend more time sitting idle, snacking, but we also seldom realize what’s happening around us.

It’s not unlike mobile phones. People complain that youngsters nowadays are so busy staring at their phones that they don’t even talk to the person sitting right next to them. Television shows aren’t much different. For instance, when I reach home after work, my roommates are busy biting their nails over what’s happening in X Factor, all the while stealing glances at their phones to check if they’ve received a reply on their WhatsApp chats. Not that I care much, but I’d rather go out to the terrace and take a breath of the monsoon breeze grazing along the horizon. Or take a peak at the waning moon, and count the days left until the next full moon. Or better yet, stare at the moon long enough until I think I see the American flag flapping away. For me, that’s more of a fun evening than wondering who’ll become America’s or Australia’s next top model.

I understand, though. We toil hard enough and want nothing more than to unwind at the end of a long work day. And television shows are a great mindless activity to get our minds away from the gruelling tasks of everyday life. So I don’t blame my roommates for not spending more time outside. What I’m unhappy about, though, is by using work stress as an excuse to plunge into a stream of television-watching, we’re only stressing our bodies and minds even more. It seems petty to me to have a heated argument over lunch about who’s a better singer in a country halfway across the world, on a show that’s running only for the rocketing ratings it brings to the channel. Also it’s a little sad that we depend on unknown faces and satellite connections to entertain us.

In the end, we’d have spent all our time either working for others’ benefit or worrying about others’ lives, losing ours somewhere in between the first and the second ad commercial.

Childhood

sheep

“How dare you do such a thing? You irresponsible, senseless, goat!”

She hung her head in silence, listening to her mother’s tirade. It wasn’t the first time, and wouldn’t be the last. She had done the unforgivable. Again. And her mother would teach her a lesson, again. Despite the many punishments for her carelessness, the little shepherdess couldn’t contain the family sheep. She’d try to steal a quick read from her poetry collection, and the sheep would caper, making her the scapegoat.

— — — — —

“Oh, childhood experience,” she reminisced, when her interviewer asked what had inspired her Pulitzer-winning novel, Black Sheep.

Connecting cuisines

Nothing brings people together like good food and great conversations. I took this picture when I was out with friends who’ve lived in Korea for a while. While we exchanged stories about our cultures and mused about our distinct social practices, they also introduced me to sushi. It was my first experience with everything sushi—chopsticks, pickled ginger, soy sauce, wasabi (wow!), even rice balled up. Though I grew up in a rice-based household, sushi showed me a side to rice that I hadn’t known before. Not only was the flavour rich but it was also a blend of the familiar with the unfamiliar.

That day, that sushi became the bridge that connected me with the rest of Asia’s delectable cuisine.

sushi

Speaking of likes…

Speaking of likes

For a few years now, everyone I know is obsessed over likes on Facebook. It’s become the sort of thing that gives identity to a person. Like a beacon that assures them they’re in the right path.

Everything is about likes. It’s as if our need for recognition and social acceptance has surpassed our ability to self assess. I know I’ve made a decent photograph of the moon last night, and yet I can’t accept it unless I’ve seen a few tens of likes affirming it for me. And if the tens grow into hundreds, my confidence grows with it.

It’s a good thing in a way, because we need self-confidence to uphold ourselves in society. At the same time, however, this incessant desire for others’ approval is making us more dependent than ever. I’ve lived in the eastern part of the world all my life, and the one thing that differentiates the East from the West is that it’s more of a pluralistic society. The western world, however, is more individualistic by nature.

We see pluralism everywhere in the East; from schools that over-indulge in group activities, to local societies that promote the extended family system, to parents who expect children to live with them until they are married off. (That’s a story by itself.)

As people continue to crave more social media recognition, even the West may head towards a more pluralistic society. The current generation is, by principle, broad minded, and so it doesn’t shy away from accepting its dependence on fellows or the previous generation. Even then, this social shift seems to grow faster now than it did in previous years. Soon, we may all become more social. But — for all the wrong reasons.

The problem is social media recognition isn’t genuine. Most of the time, people on Facebook hit on the like button not because they like the post but because they want to acknowledge whoever’s shared the post. It’s a way to let the entire friends community know that they’re just round the corner. In a way, it’s a desperate measure by one person to remind others that they exist.

Though plenty of people use Facebook and other social media for specific reasons like business ads, community building, local selling, and interests and hobbies, that’s only a niche compared to the vast pool of youth who get on Facebook to chat with friends they’ve just said goodbye to at school. I remember, when in school, my classmates making appointments to meet on Facebook at a designated time just so they could chat on FB. It was a status symbol then—about seven years ago. Not much has changed since, except now it’s Snapchat.

This tendency is making us — both the eastern and western population — unable to survive without one another. What’s ironic though, is that while a proper pluralistic society means to promote healthy social living, we, in reality, aren’t looking for actual human interaction. We’re, instead, seeking recognition through the inanimate, yet animated GIFs and laughing faces. It’d be interesting to see how our society progresses from here. Do you folks agree? Or am I just being paranoid? (I’ve heard I could be.)