How Social Media Has Changed Photographs

  A/N: First of all, I don't know anything about photography. Just saying. 

  I once read about a study about Facebook being linked to depression. No, browsing Facebook doesn't cause depression--well, not directly--but it does factor in. People tend to make social comparisons when browsing social media sites. Want an example? You see a picture of your ex with his new girlfriend. Whether or not you've moved on from him doesn't matter--when you compare yourself with the girl, you're making a social comparison. And it was all based on a picture.
  Maybe it's just me, but nowadays, it feels like a lot of people take pictures just so they can post them online. I read a Buzzfeed article earlier this morning (well, it was more of a comparison between photos of Kylie Jenner in 2010 and the ones she has now), and I felt like my belief was exemplified in Kylie Jenner. The photos she were taking of herself in the 2010s showed a smiling girl, with less-than-perfect lighting conditions and the outfits that were popular in that year. Her photos this year come off as more manufactured, her filler-enhanced lips in an eternal pout. She's beautiful in every photo, but there was a stark difference between her 2010 and 2015 photos.
  I don't like taking pictures of myself, but I do admit that I post my artwork online, on sites like Facebook and Tumblr. And, yes, I get a rush of excitement and pride when I see that someone has liked my photo. There's also a letdown when people don't take notice of it. Yep, vanity is at work there.
  And I am an extremely self-conscious person. I don't like pictures being taken of me because I know that I'll look more horrendous than I am in real life--and I don't want people on Facebook to see that. Conversely, other people take dozens of pictures of themselves in order to get their pick from their array.
  This is how social media has changed photographs for most of us. Most people wouldn't upload a shot that has their thumb obscuring part of the frame. We  are self-conscious, and we want people to see what we want them to see. The days when you took a photo just so you can keep it in your album to look at whenever you feel like it are gone. These days, it's like a constant showing-off contest. (Don't get me started on hashtags...)
   I'm not saying that everyone who posts photographs on social media are constant attention-seekers. But we have to admit that some people--maybe that's even us!--are posting for the sake of likes, for shares, for flattering comments. Which, personally, takes the meaning of 'a picture is worth a thousand words' and leaves it stale. Instead of letting a picture talk for itself, we strive to manufacture those words and force the photos to echo us.
  "Pa-like po!" 

Death of Innocence

  Sometimes, I think about whether life has gone stale on me.
  I don't know (What is it that I don't know?) I don't know why sometimes, I think that it might be better if I just disappeared. Like a bubble that has burst, and the particles of my bubble-self is scattered in the wind. What if I really am a bubble in this world? Would anyone notice if I was gone?
  I wake up sometimes with the feeling that I don't want to get out of bed (clinomania, hmm?). This is one of the luxuries of youth, maybe. I can choose not to attend classes--I am not someone who works for my own living yet, whose pay would get docked if I did not show up for work. When I am in this state of mind, I stare at the dancing dust motes carried by the shafts of light that pierce my window. I wish I were a dust mote, I think to myself. I wish I were a dust mote, going where the wind blows it. Dust that has no responsibilities, no family, no siblings whose education I would  be responsible for when I am earning my own wages.
  There are a lot of luxuries in youth. I see it now. Now that I am nineteen, and I am finishing my undergraduate course soon, I see it. I do not know what this feeling is. Maybe I'm afraid of the precariousness of life. Maybe I am burdened by the tiny sadnesses gathering on the edges of my soul. Why am I writing at this time of night?
  One of the luxuries of youth is also the ability and opportunity to dream. I don't know why, but it's like my dreams that I have drawn in my mind's eye are disappearing, one by one. Disappearing like bubbles eventually do. I think about myself going to office, going home, eating, showering, sitting on a toilet and doing my business. I think about earning money to support myself, or a family, maybe. Having children. I think about those things, and my knees start to shake. This is the reality of life. The dreams of an innocent child aren't there any more. I don't know. It's 12:32 AM. I want to sleep, but my consciousness doesn't want me to just yet. The child in me is encouraging me to draw, to write a novel, to compose a song. Be a child again, my younger self urges me.
  I feel like my ability to dream has vanished. My dreams are like birds, flying, flying in the sky. As I
grow old, they are gunned down, one by one, until they fall down...down... until they meet with the ground in a rush of sadness and pain. Who is the one with the gun? It's myself, the inner me who has steadily been losing the hope to dream.
  Yes, I am sad. This is my younger self writing, who is begging to be let back to the green fields of her childhood.
  This is also the 19-year-old me, who is asking herself is these dreams are still of any use to her.
  On this day, on the 28th of September, 2015, thirty-eight minutes past midnight, the wounded birds are still on the ground, and my younger self is being relegated to one of the many dark rooms of my mind.
  It is sad.

*This is a post that is also posted on my private Tumblr. However, I have translated it from the Filipino I wrote it in into English for this blog. I suppose it's an exercise in translation for me, too.*

AlDub, #BinayBwisitsUPLB

  Ah, politics and TV. Our household does not have a TV with channels (we don't have cable), but having the internet is basically the same thing.
  I was surprised that a LOT of my age group (based on Facebook--it's kinda troubling how much I rely on Facebook to know what people my age are thinking, it's like saying I don't interact with people that much) are into AlDub. I did a little "research" with a friend who was as clueless as I was about this sensation that has recently swept the nation. We watched an episode of it. We weren't hooked, and went back to playing Smash Brothers for the rest of the afternoon.
  Wait, I've been going off tangent here. What I meant to say was that my Facebook feed for the past week consisted mostly of two things: AlDub and Binay's visit to UPLB.
   Lately, I've been feeling like there are three groups of people on my 'friends' list in Facebook: those who love AlDub, those who think it's unfashionable (baduy!), and those who simply don't care about it. While not being a fan, I think those who proclaim that AlDub and its followers are baduy are unnecessarily harsh. What might appeal to people might not to others. Is it uncool because it's not a show staged in the States? Because if this was Glee, and you were geeking out about it on social media, it wouldn't be considered baduy. Different strokes for different folks.

  Once again, social media made its power felt when news of VP Binay's forum at UPLB circulated via Facebook posts and Twitter live feeds from the event itself. UP students were, in turns, praised for their hard-hitting questions, and criticized for their "rudeness". Binay's PR and the local news stations (hi there, ABS-CBN!) had a ball with this. Instead of a corrupt politician siphoning our taxes away, he was presented as a politician who humbly attended a forum at a university and was shamed by rude students. The appeal to the soft side of human nature has never been clearer--at least, if the Vice President's PR has anything to say about it. People vilified the students who asked the VP those "rude" questions, and those who were affected fired back, saying that Binay was someone who knew exactly how to trigger sympathy even when he was under fire for something he was accountable for.
  Then again, life gives you different perspectives on an issue. I saw a post by someone who said that, while approving of the grilling Binay underwent at the forum, he saw how people would still vote for him. They're not stupid, those people who will back Binay. They are people who are the poorest of the poor, who only had food to line their bellies with that day because this politician gave them some. Recall Maslow's hierarchy of needs. I consider myself fortunate to be someone who eats 2-3 square meals a day, and in turn am able to focus on matters other than my grumbling stomach. But can our other fellow Filipinos say the same? No, they won't. They'll remember the guy who gave them fast food in appetizing cartons, evidence of corruption be damned.
  Can we blame them and patronize them for their "lack of education", sneering down upon them as if we are little gods?

The Only Thing Constant

  I'm not usually in the loop with trends, but the subject for this blog post was something I could hardly help notice.
  This week, the new logo for Google was unveiled. I saw it as soon as I opened my browser (I'm one of the people who has Google as their homepage). My reaction? Meh.
  Apparently, a lot of other people were disturbed. And that's putting it mildly. The New Yorker, in its Culture portion, discussed the merits of the old logo, piling evidence about how the new logo doesn't cut it.
  I'm not a Philistine, but I was amused by the reaction that people had. I'd expect this level of reaction if the Mona Lisa was restored in the style of, say, Pollock (which would really be a sight to see). I mean, it's just a logo.
  Then again, maybe it's something deeper than "just a logo." Maybe people dislike change. Google hasn't been in existence for long, but it has made a big impact on people's lives. Or maybe there are people who just don't like non-serif fonts.
   I refuse to quote that tired old line about change. However, the (slight) furor over a household name changing its logo's font made me think about how people dislike being threatened. The article in The New Yorker struck me a lot--there was a line there, which I quote, "The new logo retains the rainbow of colors but sheds the grown-up curlicues: it now evokes children's refrigerator magnets, McDonald's french fries, Comic Sans." I do not mean threatened in the physical sense, nor in another sense that implies assault; I am using threatened in the sense of people's idea of something being changed.
   I wonder why the article struck me. Maybe it was because of the author's scathing stripping-down of the new logo. Maybe it was the realization that anyone can make much ado over nothing. Maybe it's that every one of us has a different concept of what "nothing" is.
   I still don't care about the logo, though.

Modern-Day Nationalism

  My primary social media site (aka Facebook) is currently buzzing with good reviews about Heneral Luna. I finally got to see it the week after it came out, after a scare that it will be pulled out of cinemas (more on that later).
  This post is part review, part musings of a girl who has grown up reading Ambeth Ocampo's essays on history. I begin with this memorable quote from the movie. "Inggles-in pa naman ako sa sarili kong bansa, punyeta!"
  The movie was undoubtedly good. I'm not a critic seasoned by experience, and neither am I an arts major. I am only a humble enthusiast in history, Ambeth Ocampo, and good movies.
  To my shame, I have only watched a few Filipino movies in my life. However, it's because I am also a very picky moviegoer. I also refuse to torrent movies, and I refuse to watch the melodramatic, absurd drivel that Filipino movie industries churn out by the dozen these days. The Filipino films I've watched are--bar one--all indie films, the ones that are shown yearly in the university (special thanks to those who bring Sining-sine to UP Manila!).
  However, Heneral Luna struck a chord in me. I am not the nationalistic type who wears her ideologies on her sleeve, but nevertheless, I am proud of my Filipino heritage. Never mind that my surname is inherently Spanish and that I have Spanish and Chinese blood in my veins. I was born and bred in the Philippines, I speak the vernacular. I walk through Manila's dirty streets five times a week. I studied Philippine History (and am taking a History 4 course this semester), along with the Philippine Institution 100.
  I have read accounts of the American occupation in the Philippines, and this movie gave it justice. Watching the movie made me realize how we need to alter our America-friendly textbooks. Our "white brothers" who treated Filipinos as nothing more than acquisitions are misrepresented in school textbooks. I remember a teacher who taught us that the Americans were our "saviors"--maybe they were, maybe they weren't. However, the movie showed the American occupation right after the treaty of Paris, a time when the American soldiers were first establishing their foothold in a country that was new to them.
  To my surprise, I found myself weeping as the first half hour of the film showed Filipino soldiers dying under fire of the Americans. It was not blind sentiment at a few lives lost on screen, but some sort of nationalistic feeling, an appreciation for the tribute that those soldiers of long ago gave to the country.
  It was amazing how the film had its parallels in modern-day Philippines--amazing, and saddening. That there are those people in power who would put their own gain before the country's and their countrymen is a truth--and it is a truth that endures even now.

                                                                       * * *

  The painstaking amount of detail to get the historical facts right gave it a two thumbs up from me. Antonio Luna was a hot-headed general, a hero who was not universally liked, but stuck to his own ideals. I cannot say that I am fond of people who, in pursuing their ideals, forge through other people's rights and principles, but it made John Arcilla's portrayal of Luna real and three-dimensional. This was not a typical movie guy whom everyone was forced to like, who was sickeningly sweet and rose to overcome the odds that the circumstances of life gave him. He had his quirks, his temper was short, and his mustache was impeccably kept. I expected him to step out of the silver screen at any moment, such was the realism that the character possessed. 

  Heneral Luna is truly a masterpiece, in every aspect of film that I can think of. If I ever have children, this would be the one film that I would make them watch. It was more than beautiful. It was real--or, rather, it evoked something real within me. 

*Heneral Luna is a Filipino film by director Jerrold Tarog.

Rally on the Street, Piss on the Concrete

  On August 28, 2015, a religious group called the Iglesia ni Cristo, or the Church of Christ, turned out in huge numbers to protest what they perceived as an attack on them by the Department of Justice. However, I am not writing this from the political or the religious point of view.
  I was inspired to write this blog post because of the disgust I had felt upon seeing how the people rallying outside the DOJ displayed their lack of discipline. Not that I was expecting a rally to be orderly, but I expected some semblance of respect that a hospital and a hospital (not to mention the DOJ) merited.
  I got to school at 8:15, a little early for my 8:30 class, and I stepped over many a prone body on the sidewalk along Faura. Later, I learned that these were INC members who had spent the night there. The huge stage set up in the middle of Faura caught my eye, but I was in too much of a hurry to think about it.
  However, I was forced to recall it when I spent my free period in the library--the blare of speakers was unmistakable. I've had my fair share of disturbances in the library because of ongoing rallies in front of the DOJ, but this took the cake. I could barely hear my own thoughts, let alone study what was in front of me.
  When I was going home, I noticed the piles of trash along the street in front of the school. Food wrappers and containers were littering the street. I cringed inside--a pet peeve of mine is when people throw their trash on the street, and this was like a nightmare to me. A few paces more, and I found myself facing a man who drew his zipper down, and then urinated on the street from his perch on the sidewalk. I was speechless with rage. There were fast-food buildings around us--he could have gone in and used their toilets, there was a mall with rest rooms.
  This led me to the offhand way most people treat discipline. Most of us only have the loosest description of discipline--it's when you say mano po to an elder and touch his hand to your forehead, or it's when you attach 'po' and 'opo' as a sign of respect to people. To some people, discipline and respect end there. As long as you're not directly affecting someone else, you're behaving admirably, right?
  Wrong. One of my pet peeves, as I've mentioned above, is when people throw their trash willy-nilly on the streets. I've seen friends of mine from UP who throw their cigarette stubs on the street and walk calmly away, as if nothing happened. I've always seen discipline as a sign of education. I the following quote on Twitter: "What's the point of your education if you still throw garbage on streets to be ultimately picked up by an uneducated person working?"
  A person's rights end where another person's begins. This line of thinking apparently isn't something that most people consider seriously. Discipline closely ties in with this. Think about it--the next time you throw your trash on the street, consider how it will contribute to clogging up the drainage system when it's raining. It will affect lots of people besides yourself. Going back to the rally, I hope the people, who claimed that they were fighting for their rights, considered other people's, too.
  (However, it was not necessary to piss on the street. If he had to go, he could have walked about a block towards Robinson's. Just saying.)
 

The Snow White Syndrome

  We are a country that prides itself on saying that we are a free people. Ako ay Pilipino, taas noo kahit kanino. Remember that fable, about Bathala trying his hand at creating man? He makes a clay figure and bakes it, but forgot about the oven and the person inside it. Out popped a "black" man, and he represents the race of dark-skinned people. Another clay man was baked, but, fearing that the man will come out burnt again, Bathala takes it out of the oven too soon, creating the Caucasian race. Lastly, he makes yet another clay man, this time careful about leaving it in the oven for too long or not leaving it in enough. As a result of Bathala's attention to the oven, the clay person turns out a lovely golden-brown, or a kayumanggi as we Filipinos call it.
  Hearing that story as a child, it left on me the impression that we are proud of our skin color--not because we were 'perfectly done' as in the legend, but because it is one thing that sets us aside from other races. Not unique, mind you, but different.
  These days, it's a different story. Filipinos are scrambling all over themselves to buy whitening soap, whitening lotions, whitening creams...you get the picture. The whiter, the better. Never mind that we don't naturally have pale skin--that's what those glutathione treatments are for, right?
   I think it's sad. Our ancestors passed down the legend of a beautiful, brown-skinned creature, and today, we're subscribing to the idea that the whiter your skin is, the more desirable you are. You might say that this is just an instance of "the grass is always greener on the other side", where pale-skinned people are tanning themselves. But it hasn't reached the point where it's almost a craze--like it's become in our country. Every soap claims to have whitening properties, every lotion boasts that it can, and I quote, "significantly whiten your skin in just 7 days!"
  It's oddly troubling, especially when you see how much people set their standards of beauty on something that isn't even inherent in our race. We're a mix of foreign blood and cultures, sure, but most Filipinos are still brown-skinned. Yet we want the pale skin that Westerners have.
  We mock those who have dark skin, forgetting that beneath the layers of makeup and whitening treatments, we have skin just as dark as theirs.
  Maybe it's another form of slavery to those who once conquered and occupied us. The fairest of them all is the pale-skinned, the veritable Snow White amidst a nation of brown-skinned people.
  This is just another unpopular opinion. Still, isn't it odd that we scorn those who have the skin that our people naturally has, and idolize those with complexions that most of us can only gain by artifice?

*Image by Hester van Doornum