PBB: House of Chaos
Friday, May 18, 2012 @ 9:23 PM | 3 comment(s)

So we have this show on TV which is entitled Pinoy Big Brother (PBB), a franchise of Big Brother, and produced by Endemol. This reality show is such a hit that its producers worked their asses off to open a new season a week after the last one ended. Indeed, Filipinos love to watch people get down and dirty on live television, and talk about them when there’s nothing worth talking about… well, other than people getting down and dirty on live television. Perhaps reality TV is now part of the Filipino tradition: we won’t know what to do without it. Even psychologist or psychiatrist or whatever sees this as a cause of some drug-induced criminal acts with the involvement of cameras and killing people while recording the gruesome incident… and winking like a maniac at the end of the “successful reality act”. (This is not to tolerate such stupid acts; all my heart goes to every victim who had undergone such unfortunate death).


Going back to
PBB. The latest season airing in our boob tubes right now is the Teen Edition: gathering a bunch of kids aging from 13 to 17 years old with the most bizarre personalities and dumping them inside the now-famous mansion of a phantom called “Kuya”. This is basically like The Hunger Games, without the killings and silver parachutes. Right now the teenagers are in a circle of chaos. There’s this issue with – for heaven’s sake – rationing of food amongst the hormonally imbalanced housemates. In the center of it all is the “Alpha Goggles”, which I learned from Twitter Trending Topics, is a fraternity-slash-clique-slash-something formed inside the Big Brother house by these housemates named Kit, Ryan, Roy and Tom. As far as I know (which isn’t much since I barely tune in to this petty drama), the Alpha Goggles doesn’t divide the food equally and takes the biggest part of the cake. And why is that? Because they’re the ones who basically work in the kitchen because the girls (ironically) aren’t that good of a cook than these boys are. You get the most because you give the most. It seems rational, right?

I think it’s half-rational and half-irrational.


I’m not much of critic and a guru of moral values (because I believe I have the blood of a Slytherin), so I have no say of how they should behave or who is right or wrong. But then I have the beliefs of a Ravenclaw, which means I – mostly – think logically, without giving a damn about people’s feelings. I’m not a Hufflepuff, so basically I don’t care about emotions and fear of hurting others. (This is how I see the Hogwarts Houses, I’m sorry if it doesn’t meet yours.) So again, if you look at it logically, the Alpha Goggles is right about one thing: they eat more because they’re the ones who make and prepare the food. And then wrong about one, too: they keep some food to themselves because… I don’t know really. They’ve all worked hard for the weekly budget so they all should
equally benefit from it.


But then I didn’t write this semi-review because of what’s happening inside, but outside, over the Internet (because I don’t fully know what the real score is, and because what I only notice are the reactions from PBB enthusiasts). Let’s leave the verdict to Paco and Kuya, shall we?


It’s so annoying how people on Twitter get all jumpy when they see PBB and maniacally tweet their hearts out because, hey, we hold the freedom of speech. I respect all the freedom and rights people have, but how about the housemates’? You can’t just tweet about how “Kit should be evicted, Ryan and Roy should be nominated, and Tom should be spared because he’s a good boy (and he looks cute) anyway”. What are the hate tweets for, really? It’s not as if the PBB people will read all your tweets – and if they do, there’s a point zero, zero probability that they’d execute what you want them to execute. You are not their boss. Okay, you are their target market; they should meet your expectations and your reality TV fetish, but great heavens! You are not Ms. Charo Santos-Concio; you are not Mr. Laurenti Dyogi. You are just one of their euphoric spectators who makes money for them.

And why all the effort to ridicule and judge Alpha Goggles – and the other housemates – when you don’t even know what truly happened. I’m not backing the Alpha Goggles up; I also think some of their principles are fundamentally not acceptable. You’re not living with them; you are not inside the house. Even watching the live stream (which I think is ridiculous – you haven’t any life, have you?) doesn’t give you the full and true score of what really is happening. It’s the television: everything can be edited. I saw this tweet saying how “Kit and Ryan are assholes and disrespectful” and that “Roy is just a construction worker”. Oh, really? Have you looked at yourself lately, or say, after you send that tweet? So who’s disrespectful now? And how dare you look down at Roy’s decent work, the work that helps him feed his family and send his siblings to school?

And what if their parents or their relatives or someone they care about are also on Twitter or any social networking site and read those posts? It wouldn’t be hard anyway since it’s trending. Trending. Just a click away from all the hate tweets. Have you learned the word “consideration” in school? How about “discretion”?


I’m not being a hypocrite and all. To be honest, I’ve done that before: bashing on someone I don’t like. But then I realized it’s bad. I didn’t like Charice before, and until now I’m not her fan, but at least I respect her and I’ve stopped talking shits about her ever since. I don’t like The Wanted, so as much as possible I don’t listen to their songs so I won’t have anything to say about them and their music. I agree with that one Youtube comment that Jessica Sanchez has the “personality of a brick”. But then she’s a Filipino and she’s really good (but not my type) so I just leave her alone. It won’t do me any good. I’m just wasting all my effort hating on them. I’d rather read and fangirl over the people I adore; I’d rather have a life. I don’t hate them anyway; they’re just not my favorite people in the world.


So I just hope you’d think first before clicking that Send button. Who knows, that I-think-this-is-harmless post might hurt somebody who the housemates (or anybody) cares about. Think. Consider. Edit. Think again. Send. Or just leave it alone and move on with your life.


PS: I love you, guys. Really.

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a woeful & chaotic diary since 071409