Let’s live through a typical Filipino Gen Z’s day on the internet.
Usually, the social media app rotation goes like this–which may or may not even be in this order: TikTok, Facebook, X (it’s still Twitter to us), Instagram, and repeat. Most of the time, we dead scroll in all of those apps or even engage in some chika that ultimately makes us chronically online human beings.
So we’re on Twitter—here and there we can see some of our favorite Twitter personalities making viral posts, others being relatable with their ayoko na gusto ko na lang ng generational wealth posts or whatever, and others just clout chasing and stirring the pot without anything in it.
Then, we come across some posts from a disgruntled Gen Z calling out words and phrases such as “eat the rich,” “privilege,” “class discourse,” and other synonyms. We dive in deeper into their Tweet, see the replies either agreeing or disagreeing with the person, and then check out their quote retweets.
We see people again, either eating their imaginary popcorn on screen, or inserting their own perspectives, or whatever we Filipinos like doing on the internet.
We sigh, take one last look at the discussion we’ve been looking at for 30 minutes or so, then close the app. Go to another app, dead scroll on it, then rinse and repeat.
I swear, it’s a deadly cycle, which is why we’re all chronically online.
Filipino Gen Z internet behavior can range from being totally void of common sense and just wanting to be a plant to ultimately being the angriest and frustrated and taking it out on everybody over the simplest things.
Let’s take a look at some of Filipino Twitter’s most recent “online discourse” this 2024:
Just this January, we had that Reddit post where a person from DLSU was bitten by a child street dweller. People were so quick to say “HAHA dasurv” or “Eat the rich daw talaga” that others immediately invalidated other people who came out with their own experiences with the children living in that area.
That specific Reddit post sparked an eye-opening conversation on how people view children living in slum areas near renowned places where middle- and upper-class people go to school. Especially with how much people easily equated how students in DLSU were constantly harassed by the street kids to the “rich vs. poor” discourse.
We can’t deny the fact that of course, we have to empathize with the children and how they were forced to grow up in such harsh conditions. At the same time, we are allowed to feel sympathy towards people who have been victimized by these children through these kinds of actions.
Those two things are allowed to co-exist. There’s no point in weighing those two ideas out to glorify your self-righteous thoughts. Who wouldn’t feel threatened when some kid (regardless of their socioeconomic standing) bites you out of nowhere right? Or harasses you in broad daylight and you not being able to give them lick because they’re kids?
Another online chika (gossip) that happened not even a week after that was the “anik anik discourse”—a.k.a. some people on Twitter “calling out” the people who collect Sonny Angels and other things who call their collections as “anik anik.”
Huh? Why are people mad over the use of a word? Does the use of a word have to be politically correct AND has to be according to one’s socio-economic standing? Like, not everyone is allowed to call their collections as “anik anik” because they’re not from a certain social class?
People on the internet are saying that someone can’t just say “anik anik” to their expensive things because “anik anik” is used by other people to describe a Filipino’s hyper-maximalist culture.
Since when did that become a thing?
Then just a few weeks later, lo and behold, we have the “karinderya” (eatery) discourse.
Coming from a Tweet that called out the privilege of people saying that a certain red and yellow fast-food chain was cheap (and OP clocked their own privilege too, btw), it ultimately sparked a quite heated conversation over the affordability of these local eateries.
The whole point of the first Tweet (the one that started it all) was to call out people defending a fast-food chain that is currently backing an ongoing genocide (which HELLO, THERE REALLY IS A GENOCIDE HAPPENING), people were (as always) quick to turn the wheels on a whole different topic. Again, related to classism.
At the same time, people also lamented how karinderyas nowadays aren’t as affordable as they used to be in the past. Just as how everything else rose in price, so did the prices of these local eateries.
We get the whole point of not finding a good karinderya is a skill issue, but not everyone has the same upbringing or health conditions. People were so quick to generalize the middle- and upper- classes for being “matapobre” just because some of these people (who is to say that they’re the majority or not) choose fast-food chains over the local karinderyas.
What if they had grown up with sensitive stomachs and were taught by their parents to be picky with the places they eat at? What if they’ve had bad experiences of eating at karinderyas which is possibly why they don’t eat there? Does that still count as being “matapobre”?
God, people on the Internet should have one week of a detox to keep up with this line of thinking. Literally, our brains are fried and are unsalvageable.
Virtue signalling is has always been a way for people on the Internet to strike conversations about anything. It has always been the easiest way to start fights online, with both sides trying to prove how they’re the more righteous one than the other.
Plus, it’s always the online performative activists who start the fights, btw. If you’re reading this and are hurt by this statement, then the shoe fits.
In these kinds of online fights, no side can win; it’s always goes on back-and-forth till one side just stops replying because they’ve probably realized how futile their efforts are or if they were able to slightly convince the other side of their arguments.
And you know what? It’s already become so tiring to see to the point that not everyone takes anything that’s actually serious seriously anymore.
You’re wondering why people have become so cold and uncaring on the internet when it comes to actual world problems? It’s the fault of those snowflakes that take everything so seriously.
Yeah, we get that everything is political and that everyone should be heard. But if it’s always going to be the people on the internet vs. the middle- and upper- classes even that’s not mainly the issue, then we’ve got a problem.
Can’t we just enjoy things as they are without it being shoved down our throats?
Yeah, we’d just like that.
And no, this doesn’t make us ignorant, btw. We get our privilege, we clock it out ourselves in private.
Not everything is the internet’s to dictate.
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