When I was going appear on my second episode on Blogtv, I was having a chat with then host May Wong before the show started when she remarked that I paused for a second too long before choosing the Hongkong team’s swimming trunks as my favourite on the previous episode.
“You noticed that?” I asked.
“It’s national TV, you know.” May replied.
But toothfully, I hadn’t been watching Blogtv until I appeared on the show. The fact that it’s national TV doesn’t always mean that it’ll get noticed – if viewership were low. In fact, the majority of my friends didn’t even know that I was on TV. But make no mistake, it’s a live show that can be recorded by just about anyone who knows how. There is no editing, no rehearsal. It’s all very informal, spontaneous, but every single epic performance or goof is transmitted to every living room (or bedroom) at the speed of light. Warts and all, if you will – a bit like reality TV, but even more real. Given the laid back and impromptu nature of the show, most goofs will go unnoticed. But if your goof happens to be “noteworthy”, the captured segment will quickly go viral on YouTube as we can see below.
What happens next? Apologies of course. But toothfully, I think we’ve been a little harsh on Mr Seng and I think I understand what he was trying to say. It’s just the mention of race that was unnecessary. I remember cringing when I first heard it live on Monday, but I didn’t think people would be too bothered with it. I forgot about it the very next day. But Blogtv is repeated. Very often, it’s people who don’t watch Blogtv who “stumble” on the repeat telecasts. It was not till yesterday (Thursday) that I heard the roar. All of a sudden, I was reminded of what Mr Seng said on Monday night. I was also rudely reminded that gone are the days when prime ministers could say that people from a certain ethnic group can’t be fighter pilots or machine gun commanders and get away with it.
As the “anger” builds up, the opportunists jumped in and made videos and text postings to get noticed. The “angrier” the response, the higher one’s chance of getting noticed. A bit of crying also helps. We live in an age of opportunities and opportunists.
But toothfully, I bet the majority of these “angry” people are only reacting to the “noteworthy” segment and don’t even watch Blogtv. I’m not sure if more people will watch Blogtv after this, but the public will definitely be keener and keener on picking out people’s mistakes on live programmes.
And all this scares me. It doesn’t tak too much imagination to figure out why. Who doesn’t make mistakes? Are we quickly and surely becoming a society of bloodthirsty and unforgiving people, eager to join the mob and finish someone off when he is down? If well-educated and experienced people like Mr Seng can make this sort of mistakes, what about the rest of us? What about autistic people for whom acceptable social behaviour doesn’t come naturally?
Would it be ironical that with so much more services available to these unfortunate individuals, it’s going to be even harder to integrate them into mainstream society because it’s getting more and more like a jungle out there? Are autistic people going to be further marginalised by their impatient and self-centred peers? If karma holds true, one way or another, people in the “mob” will soon get a taste of their own medicine.
Ironically, Mark Zuckerberg, creator of the most successful social media, Facebook, is autistic. He often rambles off incoherently when interviewed. I’m sure people close to him will know more of his weird and “anti-social” behaviour. Books and articles only tell us so much about how he founded Facebook. There’s not much on his social life. I wonder how people treated him before he became a billionaire. I wonder if people could stop labelling others as insensitive assholes just because of something inappropriate that they’ve said.
A few friends who have been reading my blog entry Looking Back In Wonder made a protest. They felt I was overly pessimistic – not my usual self.
“Haven’t you passed your poke poke exam? How can you say 2011 is all bad?”
“You think you were unfortunate. What about the flood victims in Australia and Thailand, the earthquake victims in New Zealand and Japan?”
Well, I admit that I’ve not bee my usual self these couple of years. What happened to the guy who closed down a 17-year-old practice and battled against all odds by moving to Orchard 6 years ago? That’s why I think I need to go back in time. How? By doing the things that I used to do. This Chinese New Year, I’ll be heading up to the Himalayas again. Nothing serious challenging this time, but I’ll be doing a winter pilgrimage to Gosainkund. For the uninitiated, the area around Gosainkund lies in the Langtang Himal of Nepal. Hindus believe that the lakes here were created by Lord Shiva when he was poisoned by a demon and felt a burning sensation in his throat. He dug into the mountains and drank from the lake.
I guess in some ways, 2011 has been a poisoned year for me as well. I figure that a trek to Gosainkund may prove therapeutic.
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