The Internet Comes to the Philippines (to die)

gmameh

We Filipinos have been pretty slow when it comes to trends, but we do compensate for our tardiness with vigor and enthusiasm.

The emo look/lifestyle/philosophy, for example, took several years from the release of the first Dashboard Confessional single to take root in our tropical shores. Anyone who has been out this Christmas season knows,however, that 90% of the country’s youth now wears skinny jeans, large belts and scarves. It has gotten so bad that it has driven the original hipster middle-class emo kids to hard drink for being alienated once again.

The Filipino zeitgeist is the world’s social barometer, and once we pick something up, then a shark is about to be jumped, and a fridge is about set to be nuked.

It was the same thing with friendster, livejournal, myspace and other Internet phenomenon. We tended to be left out of the loop for a year or so, and then we took over the loop, created a wasteland, and called it peace.

Now everyone fears friendster because of the sheer volume of glitter graphics, flashing marquees (circa 1997), embedded music and douche-fags.

Myspace has probably gone the same way, and multiply and facebook are soon to follow if the proliferation of retarded facebook groups and applications are any indication.

2009 will be a landmark year for the Philippine’s crazy Internet world with the creation of “the first and only Filipino Image Board on the Net!” Inspired by 4chan and other imageboards, PinoyChan has given birth to the Filipino Anon and ushers in a new era of image macros, memes and general retardedness.

The difference between friendster and imageboards is that friendster used to be a nice place until glitter graphics. Imageboards, on the other hand, are where the dregs of online society have tended to gather. Being aberrant to start with, the infusion of Filipino blood into the mix is like splicing the Ebola virus with, say, smallpox and the genes of a wolverine. The sum of the parts and all that.

It’s still operating on auto-pilot at the moment, taking its cues from older, more depraved boards as it takes its first baby steps, but the floodgates have been opened. For better or for phail, Filipinos are about to fuck the shit out of the Internet.

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