Welcome back to Slow News Days, a hopefully weekly newsletter on journalism and journalism-adjacent topics in the Philippines.
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It is impossible to be online in the Philippines and to not have heard about the Taragis tattoo fiasco — an April Fools’ post that supposedly prompted someone to accept the challenge to tattoo the logo of a takoyaki store on their forehead for P100,000.
A little less than a week into the low-grade internet saga, it has emerged that it was all an elaborate online stunt that an internet CEO planned to get more people talking about his takoyaki or, as Thysz posits on Twitter, himself.
It was, in a way, a win for internet sleuths who doubted the story, for the internet CEO class, and for newsrooms looking for easy content that had legs.
But it also goes to show how small a gate there is left for us to keep. Yes, the hoax was eventually exposed, but not before every online outlet had a story on it or, at least, around it.
Content creators and online marketers have long figured out that all they need to do is come up with stuff that will go viral and we will eventually (even if reluctantly) be compelled to pick it up.
RELATED: Conspiracy, monetisation and weirdness: this is why social media has become ungovernable
There is no moralizing here, just an acknowledgement of where we are.
And perhaps a pointing at the potential* to latch on to these inevitable internet trends as a springboard to more substantial issues — like, for example, the ethics of paying a desperate someone to tattoo your business logo on their forehead.
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*This is not a new idea and there was an attempt to do something like that in the Philippines in maybe 2019 but it didn’t really take.
Anyway, this week in things that I wish I had thought to do but would never really have gotten around to, if we’re being honest: Top officials with private interests spoil effort to track big fishers
Also in that category, is this feature from The Straits Times: Mama, come home: Can the Philippines bring back its migrant workers?
Meanwhile, while memers and content creators get more space online, journalism stands to see even less even offline: Israel says Al Jazeera is a security threat. The network says that’s a dangerous lie.
As someone with little time and a difficult time focusing on just one thing, I have always been interested in the potential of radio and podcasts (as things that can run in the background while I try to not be buried by tasks). If you have time, here’s a discussion on St. Louis Public Radio of “Homecooked: A 50-year History of Meth in America”.
PLEASE NOTE: I am not interested in meth per se, but was interested in podcasts and public radio and in St. Louis (because I was there briefly last month) that is why.