How Social Media Shapes Identity in the Philippine Context by: Carl David Reyes

During the introduction of the speaker, Siyanda Mohutsiwa, from the TED talk entitled: “How Young Africans Found A Voice on Twitter” assigned for us to watch, I immediately though of the many, many Filipino posts that have gone viral on social media. The speaker used a hashtag in her tweet about Africa which became viral and the hashtag being used in various ways. Filipinos use the same hashtag as well to make their messages go viral or go along with what is trending not only in twitter but in other social media platforms as well. The speaker then talks about her parental roots, with her father being from Botswana and her mother from Swaziland. She brought to twitter her obsession about a shared African identity and goes on about the way she utilized twitter given its limitations in characters and follower count.

In the Philippines, a divide among the people has been established since long before because the country is an archipelago. I have read twitter wars between Tagalogs and Bisayas, which only increases the level of discrimination within the country. I, being a gamer, have my share of using online games as a way to rant about the differences of our skills and blaming their being Tagalog for that. The Tagalogs as well mock the Bisaya community in the online gaming world so it is kind of like a back and forth of mockery on cultural identities.

The speaker continues about how she and other young African travelers met and discussed about politics and society but always end up on twitter. In twitter, she explains, they found a voice there where they can share their brilliant ideas with different great purposes without having to mind the borders of different African nations and the limitations that their government has set. In the Philippine scene, especially now that it is time for the midterm elections, the voices of the different people from different places across the country has achieved a great reach. Senatorial candidates are often criticized, particularly on twitter and social media in general. The candidates as well use social media to share their ideas and platforms but, on the flipside, social media has been used to rip off opponents, share false information which poisons the minds of common Filipinos. The divide among Filipinos has become so prominent in this time as the mockery from people in Luzon, Visayas, and Mindanao greatly became so evident in social media. There is no common identity that has been highlighted but, instead, the identity of who is better and who is bad, who is from this place and who is from that place, whose idea is great and whose is garbage.

The Filipinos use social media every day. Their use of it may bring great benefit among the Filipinos as it can be a medium to share ideas, share memes for a laugh, create a community with a purpose, and find common ground, but it can also be used to share false information, spread toxicity in the society, highlight the differences rather that finding a common ground and resolve common problems. There are a lot of benefits to using social media, but with what I can see, there are a actually more people who use it in a manner that is not goof and shapes that identity that the Filipinos are a divided people with a mentality of dragging down whoever tries to climb on top.