The “Meme” Generation

Lately, “memes” have been the pinnacle of Filipino humor. Generated from their impressive wits and
creativity, Filipinos can put “fun” in everything, may it be viral videos, political personalities, movies,
TV shows, celebrities, news segments, or advertisements. Even so, despite it being something to be
happy about, not “everything” can be made into a joke.

When faced with issues and problems, Filipinos are known to resort to humor as a coping
mechanism. According to the results of an international survey made by Gallup.com, Filipinos landed
5th among the happiest people on earth, with a score 80 (Paraguay earned the first spot with a score
of 84). However, while we master the art of escaping the harsh realities of the country through
humor, we forget to incorporate the qualities of sensitivity and empathy in our reactions towards
serious matters. We have always been faced with horrifying issues and never did we fail to trivialize
them into something less serious. For instance, back in 2013, after the Habagat, the flooding in
Metro Manila produced a wave of memes of Filipinos swimming in the floodwater, sometimes
edited as Olympic swimmers, mermaids, or surfers, which, of course, was not very convienient at
that time of calamity as it had averted the eyes of Filipinos from seeing the real problem. Nowadays,
memes had become prevalent as ever, as it is now a crucial part of our social media shenanigans.
You can never scroll through your Facebook timeline without spotting at least one meme. However,
it had also become very thoughtless and inconsiderate. For example, the famous “tahp-tahp” meme,
which rooted from a video of a person with down-syndrome and another person having a not-so-
pleasing verbal exchange. While the other person is evidently provoking the down-syndrome patient
in utter mockery, Filipinos, instead of adressing the obvious ableism, chose to ignore the problem at
hand, and made it into a matter of humorous banter, which it was most definitely not. Did we really
let ourselves stoop down to this level? Where we blatantly make fun of the disabled? Where are the
hospitable, kind, and good-hearted Filipinos foreigners make us out to be? It is truly, truly sad and
disheartening that we can extend such qualities to outsiders, but fail to offer something as simple as
respect to our fellow Filipinos. Another example of a serious-matter-turned-meme is the ‘bugbug
berna’ joke which rose from a video of a three-year-old child who sustained awful injuries from her
stepmom, Berna Espina. A ripple of memes surfaced the web after the said video went viral. The
child was reportedly slapped, pinched, punched, and even bit by her stepmom and Filipinos had the
audacity and impudence to mold this into their own form of entertainment. Someone else’s pain
and torment is not for our enjoyment. Some memes that rooted from serious matters can be funny
and inoffensive however, therefore accepted by a larger audience than the “tahp tahp” and “bugbug
berna” memes. For instance, the “Wala na. Finish na.” meme was from a news interview of a suspect
of attempted rape. This may be not as offensive to joke about as the two priorly discussed memes, it
still caused a diversion of attention from the underlying problem which is rape. We should not let
serious problems that need to be addressed be overshadowed by trivial jokes.

After all, Filpinos are known for their ability to stay happy, their resilience and how they cope with
problems, and that is a good thing - However though, we cannot keep on running away from facing
the harsh realities of the world. There are matters at hand that need to be solved. There are
challenges that need to be faced. Our humor would not demolish the unsolved issues of poverty,
corruption, calamities, and so many others. We have to be rational, practical, and in dire desire of
change.