By Cherian George
Singapore sometimes seems like a metropolis in search of a kampung spirit. And I don’t mean in a good way, like being caring and considerate – if you’ve seen how Singaporean drivers respond to an ambulance behind them (they don’t) you’d realise that when Gotong Royong 101 was being taught in kindergarten, they were probably absorbed in mental sums and other essential skills to get ahead of the pack.
No, the kampung spirit that we Singaporeans are cultivating is instead a kaypoh-ish petty-mindedness; a small-town mentality that tells us that no event is too trivial to turn into a national issue.
You may have heard of that classic formulation of headline news: if it bleeds, it leads. But since Singapore is not a particularly violent society, our scandal-seekers have had to make the most of the merely unpleasant. Their twist on the newsman’s mantra is: if it offends, it trends.
And with the internet, there’s no shortage of anti-social words and actions to dissect and discuss if you are so inclined. So, instead of limiting yourself to gossiping about what you saw through the window of your neighbour’s home as you walked by, you can peek at hundreds of thousands of Facebook walls where people obligingly make fools of themselves.
Thus, Singapore – one of the world’s great entrepôts and financial centres, with dreams of being a cosmopolitan world city like New York or London – works itself into a tizzy over inconsequential internet indiscretions of insignificant individuals almost every week.
Our mainstream media are contributing to this provincialism. But independent news websites play the leading role in setting the agenda, bridging the gap between more private sections of the internet and the more public web. Since they do not have the resources to investigate official malfeasance, our citizen reporters seem to have latched onto the formula of doing investigative exposés of individual idiocy.
And so we find ourselves being served a steady diet of news concerning the silly things that random persons happen to be doing online. Welcome to kampung Singapore.
With the F-U-gate scandal, we’ve reached a new low. A 17-year-old junior college kid flames the deputy prime minister and it becomes a national event.
Has our fascination for the frivolous gone too far, I wonder. After this latest controversy, Yahoo! News asked me if it was time for an internet code of ethics. Perhaps it is. But not the kind of code you think. I think it’s time for readers to exercise more responsibility. Here’s the kind of thing that could go into an internet consumer code:
We, as responsible consumers of the internet in Singapore, pledge the following:
http://sg.news.yahoo.com/-yes--it-s-time-for-an-internet-code-of-conduct-%E2%80%93-for-readers-.html
Cherian George pro the greedy regime>>??????
Be fair, Cherian, you talked about media and the local folks, what about the govt who is so fond of nitpicking locals on petty issues/stuff????????