Hi readers, today I am going to write about a topic that just happened. I am going to write about the overnight fame of Yam Ah Mee, and how the Internet can double up as a tool to ruin people's lives.
Firstly, let me provide a little background information about this incident. Yam Ah Mee was appointed to be the Returning Officer (RO) for the 2011 General Elections (GE), which meant that he was tasked to announce the official results of each constituency to the public. This also means that he had to keep a straight face and tone at all times. After he had announced the results for each party contesting in the constituency, he had to publicly declare the winning candidate(s) as the one(s) elected for that constituencies, using the same words over and over. As there were 27 Group Representation Constituencies (GRCs) and Single Member Constituencies (SMCs), he had to repeat the sentence "Pursuant to Section 49, Sub Section 7e, Paragraph A of the Parliamentary Elections Act, I declare (Winning candidate(s) ) of the (Party of the candidate(s) ) as the candidate(s) elected for the electoral division of (Name of constituency)" for 27 times. Due to this, and his straight and outright boring tone, he left a huge impact on many Singaporeans, and one even went to set up Facebook groups and fake Facebook accounts in his name, which has attracted much popularity over the past 2 days. Now, let me voice my opinion on the whole matter.
Personally, I pity Mr Yam Ah Mee. Even though many netizens claimed that they "honoured" him, the fact remains that he has received a great deal of unnecessary. Is it really necessary that he gets so much (negative) publicity and attention just because he did his job well? It was his duty to announce the results in a plain tone so that he would not display any bias, and he did that job well. What else was he supposed to do? Express elation when his favourite candidate is elected? Or scream in exhilaration when the party that he dislikes loses? It's the basic responsibility of the RO to be impartial and fair to all political parties, and I must commend him for this. However, instead of receiving any gratitude for doing his job well, he is now subjected to many jokes and teasing over the Internet. Just look at the largest Facebook page created for him, which has around 40,000 'likes' at the time of writing. If we put ourselves into the shoes of Mr Yam and his family, how would they like being the butt of many jokes? It is definitely unpleasant to be laughed at just because his job made him sound weird and comical to the public.
Which brings me to my next point; The Internet is indeed a scary place. Rumours can spread like wildfire, and it is with the Internet that this overnight fame can be possible. With the Internet, even more people can be made aware of Mr Yam, and it certainly shows how the Internet can easily ruin someone's life. Nothing is secret on the Internet, and if somebody posts something, it can easily be seen by many others all over the Internet. In this case, after someone set up a Facebook group 'celebrating' Mr Yam, so many other Facebook users went to 'like' it, and some techno-savvy people even went to make remakes of his speech, using different tunes like disco music. While some might dismiss this as mere fun on the netizens' part, if we look beyond this and actually examine how the Internet had been used as a tool to spread the messages, we realise that the Internet is indeed scary. Everything can be spread in the shortest period of time. We can easily know what is happening all over the world at a single click. This might be a good thing, but if some individuals abuse the Internet and use it to malign others, then the consequences could be fatal.
In conclusion, I am trying to convey two messages here. Firstly, this case shows how people are still resistant to change, as seen from the childish attitudes towards Mr Yam's monotonous voice, and how the Internet can be easily used to spread messages. I hope that this post has been a good read for you guys.
Cheers,
Roystan
No comments:
Post a Comment