New age politics: The Dawn of the Tarpaulins

Illustration by Manix Abrera

I miss the days when all you can see on the streets come election time are streamers bearing the candidate's name and their undying call to Vote Wisely or Vote Straight. Back when being wise wasn't just a word but a common occurrence. or when the word straight wasn't used to denote sexual preference but an adjective to describe a line.

As if words can never be enough to describe human misery, man or the devil himself invented a new way to taunt our existence, along came...

The dawn of the Tarpaulins.

And all hell broke lose. 

The next generation politicians are now more equipped to flash a wide eyed semi- smile. A half grin, half-constipated mask of genuine sincerity now plagues the streets of the country. 8 months prior to the May elections, and 5 months before the actual campaign period starts. The mission to lure the clueless and the gullible majority starts early too.

I don't know of any study that would support my hypothesis, but I don't think I would need statistics to back up my claim that the busiest and perhaps the most profitable period for those who run the printing businesses here in the country, particularly that of the graphics/tarpaulin is during election period which normally starts a year before the election. It's when the aspirants start to adorn the streets with their faces, or the incumbent mayor running for re-elections writes a litany of their accomplishments and puts them on... tarpaulins.

Or just literally finds any occasion worthy of posting a tarpaulin.

Should the use of tarpaulins be regulated?

Unless:

1. It's my birthday.

2. It's a photo of Georgina Wilson.

3. There are no hungry evacuees/ typhoon victims waiting for the honorable politician to come and grace them with their presence for the food to be finally be distributed after the photo ops 

4. It is used to communicate plans, programs and activities of the local government unit.

Rather than the close up smile that we see on tarpaulins, or the empty accomplishments posted on walls. People should concentrate more on the platform/ track record of the candidates. Voting wisely isn't a bad idea. Unless its the last name of your crooked congressman.

Riding the Magnum Bandwagon

Over the last 3 weeks, so much has been said about this one brand of Ice Cream, so much attention has been given to it that the logic of it already escapes me. One would argue, its just good branding, an excellent job done by the marketing people from Unilever. To be able to create such big a hype and have people drooling over an Ice Cream is just a testament to how powerful the use of social media nowadays. You got to hand it over to them. 

What is Magnum then? What's so special about this ice cream that everyone just seem to want to get their mouths dirty and painted with it? Is it really that good? I had the rare pleasure of trying out this "royal" ice cream back in Singapore and I found nothing regal about it. Having a sweet tooth myself, Id say it was just okay. Its definitely not something that I would rave about.

Taste is relative though, as one might say. But in this case, taste is irrelevant. Forget the belgian chocolate. Taste has now become pop culture. Put anything on Twitter and Facebook and have people talking about it and once it becomes a trending topic, everyone would want to get their hands on it. It doesn't matter if its Aling Selya's Dinuguan or Mang Popoy's pisbol (fish ball). The key is to have people talking about it. It's a known fact. The more people talking about it, the more credibility the product gets regardless of its real value.

What is Magnum then? And what has it created? Magnum now represents a virus that is slowly killing intellect and is now reducing people into mere social status. Magnum represents the "IN" crowd. "I can buy this and eat it, I will take a picture of me eating it and upload it on Facebook and everyone will know I can shell out P50 for one special pinipig Ice cream."

Before there was Magnum, there was "Pompeo checked in at Eastwood" Kurdapya was at Bora, (Oh don't even start with that whole Boracay is BORA thing) Jun jun is now having lunch at Fish N' Co. Mercy just bought herself a new Ermes Bag "Ay shit! di ko nakita wala palang H!" (Oh Shit! Its missing the letter H!)

From the blog www.certifiedfoodies.com, the author Mhel wrote "For us regular peeps, Magnum Ice Cream is a very affordable high quality ice cream and we won’t mind paying Php 50 for it. Magnum is more of a luxury indulgence for people on a budget."

I won't go into a debate about categorizing who's in that "Regular Peeps" status bracket but yeah I guess I won't mind explaining this to families that struggles to live on P100 a day. Moreso, try validating the line "...it's the poor man's Haagen Dazs".

Don't get me wrong, I'm not a Magnum hater. I won't say no if someone would pay for it for me. I might even try buying it myself. But I surely won't go through all that trouble of holding off on the second bite just so I can take the best picture for my Facebook wall.

Our society is in decline. We don't seek for knowledge or information that matters anymore. We surround our lives with names and all things popular. Our society now cares for how one can fit in. And how easy it is to jump on a bandwagon. True, Magnum is just an ice cream, let the ones who can pay for it do whatever the hell they want with their money. In the end, what defines us as human beings isn't the ice cream or the food we eat and the clothes we wear. It's how we live our lives and affect others.

I just hope to see more of this.