Era of the Like

Photo from www.design-milk.com

You like it when people comment on what you say, no?

Welcome to the era where everyone is hungry for likes, reposts, testimonials, raves, and pokes. This is when a lot of people become so superficial, when that much needed promotion of one’s work is relatively rampant in social networking sites, begging and buying to be noticed through a simple link or an invitation to visit what they have to say. It’s pathetic as Shalani Soledad’s hosting can be.

We like it when people like what we say even though saying or writing it is against or not fully based on one’s discernment. We are all fixated to the idea of belongingness in this lonely world, where conformity had been the basis of good citizenship, procurement of licenses, and grading systems in schools. These are the times where almost everyone thinks alike, act alike, and speak alike. Should one dare to say otherwise, persecution will sure follow. We have been clones, poets, speakers of everyone we see around us, copying little by little one’s beliefs and values and assimilating it to ourselves day by day.

We are the people who are glued to the standardization and expectations of the society. Truly, this has lead to the deterioration of our creative faculties and death of rational thinking, accepting all information there is to procure, holding them as truths without even processing what was even said. We have been consumers for so long, it time we do otherwise.

We live in an era where the consumers dictate to the writers what they want to read, writing to please the audience. This somehow concerns me, when was the last time the writer wrote to please himself? I believe we must do something to revive the glorious ways of thinking that led man to its present state.

Like this? Poke me. Leave a comment!

The PBB Story

ABS-CBN's hit reality show returns to primetime with their third teen edition of Pinoy Big Brother dubbed as Teen Clash 2010.

As for myself, I've always thought PBB repetitive, amid the fact that these people came from different places all over the country. The story of the season more or less becomes the same. First you'll have two housemates who'll "fall in love" and start making "pa-cute" with their sweet nothings. I can say its even effective in securing one's spot in the latter part of the competition
.
Aside from a love story, you'll have your little petty fights then and there. Then after a few weeks or months, you'll have the Big Four contenders for the top prize. Voting. Voting. Voting. Then a PBB winner comes about and the season ends.

But in the current PBB edition, I think they have housemates that are tad to young. Say 14 and 15? And this what do you get.

After less than a day, you already see the love team. I know a loooott of girls are going gaga over Ivan Dorschner, including some of my batch mates who commented via facebook:

hahaha. nakakainis talaga. ganung age FLIRT na. alam na!

 

Kat nakakairita tong picture na to :(

 

DISLIKE!!!! 

 Seriously, I think facebook should really include a DISLIKE feature on the user's posts. HAHA

There's such a thing as Plagiarism in the Philippines

Plagiarism according to Dictionary.com is "the unauthorized use or close imitation of the language and thoughts of another author and the representation of them as one's own original work."

Put simply, Plagiarism is the representation of one's work as your own. As such, it is a violation of the Intellectual Property Law and is considered illegal in most parts of the world.

As I was browsing my Facebook homepage, I saw Ms. Selenne Santiago's (my college English professor) status that read, " Not even one of the richest man in the Philippines can be spared from Plagiarism issues. Let this serve as a wake up call to all students who most especially do nothing, but cut and paste from the internet, or any print material. "

 She was pertaining to Philippine business tycoon, Manuel Panglinan who delivered a plagiarized speech before the graduating batch of the Ateneo de Manila University's Schools of Humanities and Social Sciences during their graduation rites on March 27 and 26.

Reports from Inquirer.net also shared that parts of the speech came from copyrighted speeches by personalities such as US President Barack Obama, J.K. Rowling, Oprah Winfrey and Conan O' Brien.

When I first read about this issue, I was quite surprised that there are really plagiarism issues in our country. I've always thought that these form of issues are somewhat taken lightly and are only taken seriously in other countries.In my experience, I recently uploaded my group's research paper in Filipino about student prostitues. As of my last log to Scribd.com, our document had 4000+ views and 350+ downloads. Sadly, we haven't received even just a single message of people asking permission to do use our work. I even caught someone who did a verbatim copy paste of our work (including the title)and the best part? He even uploaded in his blog.  Plagiarism issues are all over the country, that is why Manuel Pangilinan's plagiarism issue would serve a concrete example of what the consequences of using other's work as your own.

Here's the link for the full article on Inquirer.net regarding the plagiarism controversy. 

Although the Copy-Paste technique may be the easiest way to have your assignment/research paper, it won't benefit you in the long run. First, because you won't get as much learning as you would have if you did it your way. Second, Lady plagiarism will always be there to haunt you.

Learn more about Plagiarism and how to avoid it here.

Picture courtesy of http://newsinfo.inquirer.net/inquirerheadlines/nation/view/20100405-262426/Pangilinan-offers-to-quit-as-Ateneo-board-chair