Mind Hygiene

大包子(Da Bao Zi)'s latest video resonates with me so much. He articulates what I have been thinking in such a structural fashion.

So amidst the rise of Covid-19 cases in Malaysia, another "virus" hit the Malaysian Chinese community not long ago. It was the Yang Bao Bei (YBB) saga. In summary, 大包子's video criticizes, in the rise of this virus invasion into the public consciousness, how the general audience is easily manipulated by social media, advertisers, and more specifically by an influencer, and how they used our primitive monkey mind to further their power over us.

The majority of the YBB saga happened about a month ago. After a suicide attempt which gained the public's empathy, only to reveal that she had been lying, cheating, stealing, and heavily involving in gambling and loan sharks, the public anger against her was at all time high. It was at this time that some cheeky folks decided to sponsors her and used her infamous popularity to advertise their products on Facebook live stream. I think deep down, YBB and her recent sponsors understand very well that her recent rise of popularity is an effective tool to sell products. While those sponsors are definitely dodgy, but just like 大包子, what disappoints me, is the huge number of audience who tuned into those live streams.

I feel like most of the people just don't seem to understand that view count is how they earn money and what feeding their power. The way I see it, there are two types of people who tuned into the live streams. First are those who love a good train wreck, ready to see "good" drama broke out at anytime, those whom 大包子 qualifies as soulless folks; while the others are angry about YBB and eager to express it all under the comment section. One must realize that anger is the best tool for an idea to spread online. To this point, I have to recommend a CGP Grey's video years ago about how ideas are propagated online. Like Cobb said in Inception, in many ways, an idea is just like a virus, while the emotion of anger is the best entry point for an idea to get into our mind. It reproduces, may be mutates, and then further spreads to other people when the host shares the idea. So in the end it was a mix of morbid curiosity and public anger that was used for marketing purpose in the case the YBB live streams.

Bottom line is, we have to educate ourselves, keep our mind "hygienic", build up a more solid defense mechanism with more critical thinking, in order to prevent the spread of dangerous "virus". In the case of YBB, those live streams were simply business but we as the audience must realize that we collectively has the power to influence what kind of content to be promoted.

 

Indifference is the best reaction towards the junk food internet content like the YBB saga - don't watch, don't react, don't comment. Don't solely blame the Youtubers who produce unhealthy, emotion-driven, clickbait-y junk such as pranks, we must also question ourselves if we have been over-consuming the junk by feeding them our view.

I guess another reason that compels me to write this is because I feel so unfair for Youtubers like 大包子 and 新聞爆爆看 (News Bao Bao Kan). They produces the kind of content I would like to promote. 大包子 is focused on explainer videos on Malaysian social topics while 新聞爆爆看 is aiming towards becoming a late night show like Trevor Noah. I could sense the hard work pouring into their respective channels. But sadly I also know that it is hard for them to gain the level of viewership of a drama-filled channel or influencer.