No doubt about it, reading through the hodgepodge of colorful responses in social media threads nowadays will beat the literature quality of our childhood pastime passion, the actions comics, anytime.
If one were to compare the components of present-day online threads with that of the quality of the dialogues and narrations etched and captured inside the bubbles of ye olde comics, the latter would surely fail because of their lackluster, flatness and timidity.
We have to admit that online blow-by-blows have become far more bubbly and so filled with the unfiltered lingo that is descriptive of today’s in-your-face reality.
For starters, online comments, especially when representative of the whole strata of society, richly offer a mixed format of repartee, Q&A, debates and FYI rolled into one. As such, it is often unpredictable where these comments may lead to. More importantly, once in a while unlike in comics, there is no uniformity: a whole thread itself could completely be taken over by sub-plot after sub-plot, and as this happens, the main topic is set aside, and even totally discarded. Methinks this must have been what they probably had in mind when they coined the sayings, ‘The plot thickens’ and ‘Anything goes’.
A case in point here may as well be the entertaining barrage of comments which surfaced after the supposed mass action held in some areas during the just-concluded state of the nation annual speech by the president.
It had just so happened that a day after this particular activity (which actually in itself, is a form of break in the protocols of quarantine), a sudden spike of positive cases had again been reported in many places, especially in Manila.
Naturally, this had caused an online uproar, and a storm of reactions from many sectors. It should be said however that the contention of whether one were either for or against the protest, had been the issue, as it was usually in the past. On the contrary, it was far from it. Doubts, as to the manner by which organizers had observed social distancing measures, had become the hotter topic of the day. Had it been sensible or logical in the first place to expose people to massing up again despite the pandemic? Blaming, predictable as it was, had started first from the quarantined but online residents who chastised the organizers of the rallies.
What followed (predictably again) were the immediate responses from the concerned, who insisted that they were not the cause of the spike and that they had done no wrong. Then of course, this had led to more knee-jerk posts. This time from the other supporters of both sides, who provided further testimonies and statistical data even, to cement their respective claims.
At the end of these threads, the most credible however, might have been a few comments from the medical frontliners themselves, who insisted that, after tracing procedures, some people who had come in for checkup, had indeed attended the rallies.
In spite all these varied comments, clearly borne out of our constitutional liberty to express and be free in our POV, the 64-dollar question still hangs over everyone. Is it really worth it? Back in high school, in Sing-Out, we used to chime, “freedom isn’t free, you got to pay a price, you got to sacrifice, because freedom isn’t free.”
So to end, in spite of the entertaining evolution and turnabout of our ways at communication or is it miscommunication, what has it all really proven?
