To be frank, I'm a bit sick of all this Typhoon Yolanda disaster porn. Sure, it's a horrible disaster but it seems quite exploitative already on the part of the media as they milk this for all it's worth.
Anyway, this is the first disaster of this magnitude to hit the Philippines in the age of social media. While I have no doubt social media has been instrumental in bringing attention to the calamity and gathering support for the people, one thing struck me as strange.
After the storm, there was an unwritten rule that seemingly sprung out of nowhere on Facebook and other sites that it was a bad thing to post pictures of yourself on the Internet. It's called a "selfie" apparently and the fact that such a term was added to our lexicon speaks a lot about the modern self-obsessed and narcissistic culture. Anyway, it was bad to post selfies, especially of you pigging out or enjoying life in any way, shape or form because it was "insensitive" to the people suffering in typhoon ravaged areas.
I don't have a problem with this rule. I don't feel strongly about it in any way. It's just the thought process behind it that I find curious. If one wants to understand how a line of reasoning works, it's often helpful to use backwards questioning.
Why is posting selfies wrong? Because it's insensitive to the typhoon victims. Why is it insensitive? Because they are suffering and you are not.
They are suffering and you are not.
Call me crazy but I don't understand exactly how posting selfies is a bad thing. They are suffering and we're supposed to and ought to feel bad. But if, for example, somebody posts a picture of himself having a buffet dinner at the Marriott, from that picture alone, is it actually possible to deduce that that person is an unfeeling man? Is it fair to say that the picture alone is proof that he's a bad person? Can we conclude that he is insensitive, has probably done nothing to help the needy and posted the picture perhaps just to insult the typhoon victims? Of course not. It's not fair. One can post pictures and still volunteer later, right? Point is, posting pics and "doing your part" isn't mutually exclusive. It's just perception.
But what's worse is that this isn't really about being insensitive, is it folks? It's about perception. I know what this is. This is all about image. This is yet again, another example of the narcissism and self-obsession that modern culture is descending into.
People worried about looking bad.
The cynic in me says that this isn't about the typhoon victims. It's about a bunch of guys (or girls) who probably wanted to look holier-than-thou and started saying that they stopped posting selfies because their hearts go out to all the suffering victims and that they just had to let everyone know how caring and thoughtful they were. Pretty soon it spread around and it became a contest on who could seem like a selfless and sensitive soul without actually doing anything in the real world. It's all perception.
This kind of crap is why I don't do Facebook.
