We see it all the time. Someone, somewhere, does something silly and becomes the butt of all ridicule, insults, and all sorts of hostility on YouTube or Facebook. The list of those who have been the victims of this is long, and getting longer.
Remember Christopher Lao? For those who didn’t see that YouTube video that gave him almost instant infamy, he’s the guy who attempted to drive through a flash flood, only to end up floating his car halfway across. To add insult to injury, when he and his car made it across, the latter literally dead in the water, the whole thing was literally caught on tape. No, it wasn’t some guy with a cameraphone across the way, but a full-on TV news crew. Yes, it was an ambush interview worthy of TMZ.
Of course the guy was visibly upset, and given the state of his lifeboat, er, car, it was understandable. What truly gave him notoriety was that he proceeded to blame everyone else, from the MMDA to the film crew to even the bystanders who helped push his floating car to the other side for not alerting him to the danger.
Social media sites quickly lit up when the footage came out on TV, pouncing on the guys misfortune. Many called him names and attacked his common sense. There were some funny ones, like the guy who went so far as to even re-subtitle that film clip from Der Untergang (The Downfall) of The Führer tearing each of his generals a new one to fit Mr. Lao’s lapse of judgment. Most, however, degenerated so much that one person, for the lack of anything else witty to say, insulted the guy’s nipples as he was being interviewed. Yes, this is the first -and hopefully the only- time that I will mention “nipple” in any story.
Mr. Lao, I sympathize with you. I know all too well the feeling of seeing your car get wasted by a flood as my own ride was out on the street as Ondoy reared its ugly head. However, I must say that the driver is the only one in control of the car and thus, uninformed of a flood road or not, the buck really stops with the you… the driver. Sorry.
However, this story really isn’t about you. Something is changing in our society, especially with the proliferation of sites like Facebook and YouTube. It’s about this irresponsible way that many use their online personas, avatars or whatever to attack someone for doing something (silly or otherwise) that isn’t really anyone else’s business but their own.
Social media sites, while useful for keeping in touch with friends and family, have degraded many of us to the point that we try to post some smart quip, anecdote, react to some incident, share a link or photo just to see how many people comment and click the “Like” button. Is that really what we’ve come to?
Amusing as it may be to watch the misfortune of others and tempting as it is to hop of the bandwagon to insult a guy like Mr. Lao, just keep your comments to yourself. If you don’t have the guts to say it to someone’s face and deal with the consequences afterwards, typing it on Facebook isn’t going to make you look any more courageous than you are now… sitting behind that laptop and hoping the boss doesn’t catch you updating your status.
If you’re one of the many who like to comment on someone else’s misfortune, pray that the next time you have a lapse of judgment, temporary insanity, a stroke of stupidity or any mess up in general isn’t caught on camera. Otherwise the next most popular YouTube vid, Tweet or Facebook post could be about you.
Good luck.
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Vince Pornelos
Associate Editor
www.autoindustriya.com
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