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Folkestone, Kent.

Currently, my store-bought pastel pink USB fan is serving its purpose, blowing air into my face, improving the circulation in this tiny cave (some call it an en suite), albeit very very noisily. In other words, my fan is loud.

The opening statement in no way links to what I actually want to say, but I thought it'd be nice to paint a picture of the setting I'm currently in. Anyway. I’ve been coming across a lot of different types of media recently. I borrow books from the library (taking advantage of the free facilities while I still can), buying books (telling myself it’s an investment - ignoring how I’d pack all these things to bring back home in a few months), reading different magazines and stumbling upon different sites, listening to podcasts. These material provoke and challenge the way I think and see the world, it makes me question my agendas and the way I produce (or what I produce). 

I’ve always believed in one’s “online presence” - be it branding of a company, be it personal branding. No matter how big or small your following, each person has potential to inspire, empower and teach; or the total opposite: to bully, defeat or to be a bad influence. I treat my platform with that respect, not in a vain manner, but to understand that what I say or what I do can affect the lives of people - I do not treat it lightly. As great as it is to be aware, self-aware, of my goals and objectives; it sometimes gets tiring to constantly question my own intentions and to doubt myself. Why am I posting what I'm posting? So I decided to stop for a little bit (more on this later).

So on a day to day basis: I crawl out of bed, I get my breakfast, I scroll through Facebook, come across an appalling headline, get frustrated, I get some work done in between, I watch some GoT / Korean drama, and the cycle repeats - content these days are utterly, utterly frustrating. Who comes up with articles like these? Do you even check your facts? Why aren't you highlighting things that should be highlighted? Let me point out two examples:

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1. Boy with the Broken English

World of Buzz has recently enlightened us with an article about how this man tried to complain about McD. Unfortunately, this inability to properly communicate his unsatisfactory experience with this ginormous fast food joint has led to him being a joke on the internet. It's funny, of course it's funny; while we're at it let us also sprinkle some "let's patronise him" and "let's belittle him" and "let's laugh at him" tones in this article. On the top of my head, I can think of a couple ways to angle this story:

a. Poor Quality of Education and How it Affects Our Daily Communications

b. How McDonalds Got Away with Poor Services

This huge platform with its massive following could have been used to tackle these serious issues, or to get McDonald’s to respond and to act on providing a fair compensation. But all that was done was to create an opportunity for McDonald’s to laugh along with the rest of Malaysia.

Next:

A series I did for Instagram regarding the issue

2. Malaysia #1 Healthcare

This is the world's most annoying and misleading headline(s), ever.

Based on the 2019 International Living Annual Global Retirement Index (which isn't an index backed up by statistics but by the mere opinions of a dozen), Malaysia was #1 for the Healthcare category for retired expats. R e t i r e d e x p a t s. RETIRED EXPATS. But news platforms and politicians and random Twitter accounts started selling this idea that Malaysia has highest of the highest quality of healthcare. We're not bad, to be fair. But this misleading headline can be so poisonous. How so? The lack of awareness of the ways in which our healthcare can/should be improved had led people to great ignorance. People who can afford it don't have to spend five hours in a hospital just waiting for a prescription. People who can afford to take five hours off a day to visit the hospital don't depend on hourly wages for their life. People who can afford to miss five hours worth of hourly wages telling people who do depend on hourly wages to "just be grateful because we have cheap(er) services".

The lack of fact-checking and the way it is reported is utterly disgusting. We're a great destination for retired expats, that's something to be proud of. But if you're trying to apply this to the entire Malaysian population who wouldn't be able to afford what retired expats can afford then that's just lying. And that is a distasteful, awful and loathsome way to angle an article.

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"In news media, echo chamber is a metaphorical description of a situation in which beliefs are amplified or reinforced by communication and repetition inside a closed system."

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It's frustrating because every day, people are being bombarded with news that do not show all sides of a story, that are not facts, that are misleading - lies even. The scariest part is that as the public, we accept such information so openly and willingly. We hop on the bandwagon to laugh at someone with broken English rather than really questioning the intentions of such a news story. Or we have pompous characters arguing for the sake of arguing, debating from morning... well it doesn't stop. It makes me think: have I been posting lies? Have I been highlighting sides of a story that I shouldn't have?

Source: Wikipedia

Initially, I wanted to continue this post with a few mentions of what I've been doing - took a step back and remembered what I loved, what my goals were and to try new things with no particular agenda at all. But I realised this topic is too heavy on its own to have me just end it with talking about myself and my life and what I've been up to. I'm not writing this to offend individuals, I'm not pointing out that anyone is a particularly bad writer - but I'm saying that as users and creators (which all of us are), that we should be more responsible with what we're suggesting. When you come across and engage with content, how do you respond to it?

Ever day I'm asking myself questions - about the content I receive, about the content I produce, about my behaviours and the world: What can I do about it? Is what I'm producing important, is it influential, inspiring?

Edit: I stumbled upon a couple of articles and also wanted to just point out the poor quality of content - in terms of typos, grammas, etc. Like... you're an entire organisation with editors whose main job is to spell-check and approve such content; yet you find incomplete sentences and missing punctuation. Why? How much do you respect your readers? How much of yourself do you even place in the articles you're releasing? I pondered on this topic a bit more and realised there's so much more to talk about - in terms of how brands carry their online presence and how they can use it to their advantage and benefit the society at the same time. The whole influencer scene and what it's all about. But more on those next time.