If social media were a night club, definitely most of us are patrons. But many will be fame whores. Others, then, will be jurors. Certainly, a bashing jury. Some pretend to be experts. Some are drama kings and queens. Some are total idiots, posting a photo of their dead grandmother in an immaculate coffin and waiting for “likes.” Some are losing it all, excitedly displaying a negative pregnancy test and celebrating because they are “safe.”
Then we, the Filipino keyboard warriors (the “moron-nials—I mean millennials) hit the “like” button as if it were the emergency button of a building under fire. We never read the content, or are discriminating vis-a-vis the pictures, or comprehend what the article means (most of us don’t, because we are using free data only).
That’s not it. After liking it, we go to the best Pinoy hobby these days—commenting, which is today’s modern way of gossiping. Wait, we ain’t just commenting. We are bashing. We are inflicting argument. We are adding salt to the wound. No, not even salt, we are adding chili to the bloody wound.
Moron-nials.
We are the fame whores. We like riding the wave of trends. We religiously follow an artist who feels he can sing well (hashtag #NASAYONAANGLAHAT), up to the kilig movie of the year. In fact, we even comment on the NBA finals (and the last thing you cared about is the name of the coach)! But after the series of bandwagons, we jump to another topic, to yet another topic, until we go back to our pressured (I mean pressured, not treasured) selfie photos where your darn toilet bowl is the background.
Moron-nials.
We are the diehard supporters of individuals who are unassociated to us. We even kill for them. We fire guns at anyone who has something negative to say. We create chaos in an improvised community, to which we connect ourselves 24/7. How connected are we? We go on a date without even talking. We just keep on bubbling on social media, and we keep quiet in the real world.
Moron-nials.
We are today’s professionals, too many master’s and doctoral degrees, too many universities entered, too many academic accomplishments earned.
Yet we have less common sense.
Harcee R. Sarmiento, 29, is a teacher and school paper adviser at Anastacio G. Yumul High School in Concepcion, Tarlac, as well as a writer, poet, composer and chess player.