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DIVING UNDER THE INFLUENZA



Moths to the light, flies to the filth.


That somehow explains divine hardwiring done on passionless choices of insects, as bees and butterflies are drawn to flowers to gorge on nectar sweet or why locust swarms descend upon foliage greens for their feeding frenzy; to fatten their bodies, convert chlorophyll and fiber into protein that would make 'em excellent comestible for the likes of a St. John the Baptist who survived desert aridity for years with locust as staple fare and source of needful nutrients.


Choices of bipeds hereabouts are tougher to reckon, say, Pornhub reports that Filipinos are tops in the world for spending the most time on the site while global environment monitoring teams are saying that Philippines ranks third worldwide in efforts to choke the land and the seas with plastic waste-- no guestimates on numbers for any analyst to gauge, like, it took 16 million of those bipeds to hoist to the highest office of the land a raving sewage-spewing psychopath.


Of a 110-million strong populace (the main bulk are nearing or just past the age of majority), some 22 million are hooked to the social media site of TV host Willie Revillame, around 18 million tune in to the site proffering loud paroxysms of gripes, harrowing sorrows that bedevil lives of strife and dysfunction. A far third in the number of fan following are the Internet platforms of such celebrities as Vice Ganda, Angel Locsin, Marian Rivera, ad nauseam.


Do these numbers point to a trenchant mood, manner, or emerging ethos, even zeitgeist?


Probably. But advertising firms are seizing these figures, using them as reliable indicators where the consumers can be cajoled to spend their hard-earned monies on. Quantity rules over quality, so, every outfit throws its money on sites that can boast the most numbers. Go where the lemmings are going-- never mind the disaster ahead.


Those who muster the most herds are the influenza, oops, lapsus calami, I mean "influencers."


Those following the herders won't be cited for diving under the influenza or whatever strong liquor they have been getting their heads addled with.


Never mind the mind-set moulded amongst followers, what matters most is that the numbers can be monetized-- ads plunked down a social media site rake earnings that line the pockets of the influencers. So, that 22-million strong following can rack up millions of pesos a week for Willie Revillame! He can laugh all the way to the bank.


Opinion pieces like this one turn up the proverbial "two-cents worth".




  











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