What is it about the times we live in that makes people more me-centric, to the point of exhibitionism. Why the need to draw attention to oneself?
Or am I mistaken? Perhaps, it started long ago except but it just took different forms. People used to say “look at me” through what they owned. Bigger homes. Then it’s bigger homes in better neighbourhoods. Many bigger homes in investible neighbourhoods. Similarly, owning cars. Then it’s bigger, brighter cars. Many bigger, brighter cars. Bigger and better country clubs. Bigger, shinier, newer… whatever… just collect them. Do we need them might be met with is that even a valid question?… It makes us look better.
Those things maketh a man. Or simply, things maketh a man. (“man” in its generic meaning… don’t get on my case).
These days, exhibitionsim rears its head in different ways. In fact, I think it’s scarier. At least, rightly or wrongly, being a high class “karung guni” (rag and bone) man, seems to point to better living. (I didn’t say better lives). These days it just seems more destructive.
I mean take the practise of “sexting” – it used to be word of the year! It’s gone beyond texting sexually explicit messages, it is sending sexually explicit images and videos!! Some are even uploaded to the public domain voluntarily.
Why? Is it self-love or self-loathing that leads to such behaviour?!
Or the Ris Low’s of the world capitalising on a mistake! for her two minutes of fame…
Or a 22-year old revealing to the media, her affair with a man twice her age? I refused to read trash, not that one person can stop the media from capitalising on sensationalist news, but people keep giving me the details.
I am not excusing the man’s behaviour and choices. I am not saying that the old way where we sweep things under the carpet is the acceptable way. I am not excusing the media for their voyueristic, sorry standards of “journalism” (if you can call it that). I am not saying it is not the right thing to “expose” a wrongdoing.
I don’t want to go into the excuses about everything is so available to the public these days. Video phones gives everyone access to recording at any time and place for whatever purpose. Media is so available via call, e-mail, sms.
Just wondering out loud, why a 22-year old would reveal something that is so private to the media? Aren’t personal confessions and repentance enough? Putting aside that she is not concerned about the feelings of innocent people like his wife and children, and wants to hurt the man, since he is a public figure, what does she get from this? Revenge and her two minutes of fame? Tell me I’m wrong.
I am flummoxed!! … ok ok… confused, perplexed, flabbergasted, baffled…. at a loss for words… (well not , really)
Doesn’t she realise she is hurting herself too? Her loved ones?
There is a Peranakan/Malay proverb that goes something like this: “tepuk ayer dulang, percik muka sendiri”. She did that. She “hit” the water in the dish and it splashed on to her own face.
Is that ok? I mean like all the “look at me” conversations/interviews/actions. Or all the sexting videos and images, isn’t that tantamount to pornography? The reason or excuse is that it’s for someone you love. But I say someone you love, will never ask you to do such things. Or do they?
So what is it peeps? Is it exhibitionism?
Is it confined to this generation? What is causing this? A stressful world? A more licentious world view? The accessibility of media? Self love? Self loathing? Parents loathing? What?!…..
AdLIBBING 
ok, I’m finally on….
yep, media always wins…as long as there are people who want to know about people-
Monicker!!! (I like the name :D, reminds me of a person who so wants to jealously guard her identity and so insists everyone uses a monicker… hahahaha)
Hi! Welcome… finally!! 🙂 Lovely to hear from you. Will stay tuned to more from your neck of the woods. Watching this space. :p
Bujang, look who finally showed up. 😀
…..I was about to “not comment”….and then the &%$#@! oops, I mean guy says he may make a movie of this…….sigh…… makes me wonder if this guy is a sadomasochist.
…..and in today’s news, this other lady (the second girlfriend) makes a police report about being harrassed by him through SMS messages……and receiving calls from strange men…look who’s complaining about being associated with strange men.
…maybe this saga within a tragedy within a calamity will make a good story line….I hope they find actors with decent diction…..”It’s simper !”
He what?!!!!!!!! Freaking a***h***.
No lah 2Cents. He is not sadomasochist. That’s being too kind. He is a sadist! He gets a *bleep* out of torturing others, especially people he loves… 😮 The “&%$#@! ” is correct!! No oops and buts about it.
I mean all of us make mistakes. He made a show of being somewhat “contrite”. But this guy is thinking of “milking” his mistakes!!!!!; which leads me to think that it was all a show.
I know it’s a private matter but because he’s making it so much more public by the way he’s handling it, I wish his wife would stop standing by him. She already has so much to deal with – the hurt, betrayal, anger, grief. It’s good if she wants to be the big person and forgive him but really, that’s also private. It doesn’t have to follow him to his public arena, which appears to be all he is trying to protect now.
I dunno… Trying not to be unkind is not such a “simper” thing … even when I am NOT reading his trashy news. I mean I would want people to be kind if I erred but I sure hope that contrition comes in hand with sincerity.
They can all high five together lah…. One hand slicing the air won’t produce a “CLAP”. All of them are the same.
Which brings me back to square one. We’ve come full circle. They are all exhibitionists – hankering after their few seconds of fame or clawing not to lose their space in the spotlight.
We shouldn’t give it to them. I wish the media would stop already. Sigh….
I was about to take back what I said earlier about it being a publicity stunt….and then the guy and his wife holds a press conference ! I was reminded of the Tiger Woods press conference ….
This one followed a similar vein ….. this time with the wife present and sitting beside him ! Guess I am cynical but it smacked of a stunt to win sympathy. My mandarin is not great and I thought I heard something about “giving them a second chance”….errrr….the guy was unfaithful to his wife….what does that have to do with the fans, supporters and critics givign him a second chance? He did not apologise to then at the conference.
Don’t get me wrong….I feel for the family and the trauma they are going through. However, celebrities must realise that they lead public lives and are subject to public scrutiny….not unlike politicians in some ways.
When the Tiger Woods saga broke, I wondered what the fuss was about….I thought to myself….this guy is the world’s best golfer. Why is there an expectation that he has to be a flawless person? Some may argue that he had endorsed values and products which put him in that light. Hello?…..these are advertisements….like some celebrities here which endorse seafood restaurants, pawn shops, furniture, electronc products, slimming centres, “making mountains out of mole hill” centres…..some are so corny, full of bad English and scripts so badly written that they become funny and annoying at the same time. Do we really believe that these celebrities would die by those products and services? Surely not….they are stage acting …. that’s what they do for a living. Some time ago, there was a lady who taught cooking on TV ….guess what….she was featured in an advertisement for instant noodles ! What an irony.
A day after the conference, the media reported that some actors his company represented started a new company. That seems to lend weight to my theory that the media event was commercially driven.
My thoughts are that this is something between him and his family. We should leave him be….and I wished that he too would let that be…..sigh…..
The one thing I am disgusted with is this guy seems to have taken advantage of his position to prey on young ladies desparate to break into the movie scene….err….his taste is another matter. A certain radio station I listen to said something really cruel about them….I’ll leave it at that. Obviously he wasn’t thinking with his head…or was he 😛
Aiyoh yoh yoh.. 2Cents.. no lah… it can’t be that the press conference was called by both him and his wife?!! … 😮 I think he called for it but I have no idea why she felt she needed to attend.
All these “battered”-wives-standing-by-their-man nonsense. No need lah… Like you say, it is a private matter…. just deal with their own anger and grief in private. I think Woods’ wife is in a better place handling this issue privately. And his press conference was different, she was noticeably absent from the press conference Woods held. Smart cookie… but I digress…
He didn’t apologise?!…. I’m not sure if this is another publicity stunt. But if he didn’t apologise and he asked for a second chance… it just appears that he is asking for the second chance as a director and agent. As in don’t shun him for this indiscretion of the….er… you can fill in the blanks with whatever thought bubble you have. This is a PG blog.. I can’t verbalise this thought bubble!!!!
Re the news post conference of an actor from JNP, starting his own company.. (this news I read)…I think out of the shrivelling vestiges of guan xi left for JN, the actor was just allowing him to make restitution first, before he pulled out. As he probably wants to allow JN to prevent a potential exodus from JNP.
Anyway, I wonder if these folks are actually sorry for what they did or sorry they were caught?! And therefore broke their “nice” (for them) having-their-cake-and-eating-it world.
Like you say 2Cents, unfortunately these are public figures and as such, they are subject to public scrutiny. They become a role model of sorts not only for their prowess (which we now find extend outside the golf course and celluloid world). But Woods allowed the whole squeaky clean persona to be built around him – good sportsman, good man (right!). JN portrayed himself as the family man. So companies flock to them to endorse their products as they want their products to be associated with that particular image… (Again… the more fool we… if we go out to buy something just because some personality endorses it. They are richer for their endorsements than their craft!!!!)
Because of that, they unfortunately will be in the public eye. They have not only betrayed their family but the public who support them, because you can’t lay claim to a persona (which ultimately is linked to some moral value or the lack of it) and not live up to it.
The people who should be left in private, are the innocent – his wife, the rest of their extended family and especially his kids … the latter, thankfully seem, at this point, to be out of the prying eyes of the voyeuristic media and silly, silly public who feed the media frenzy by reading such fodder.
For us, I come closest to Shakespeare through Hamlet in lieu of Macbeth… “to comment or not to comment, that is the question. 🙂
I didn’t even know there was so much gossip as I hardly ever read the papers (too much tragedy and mayhem whether intended or otherwise). All I knew was suddenly a whole group of people swooped down at me, their hands full of mee rebus and teh tarik and proceeded to tell me the gory but oh so delicious tales of JN. They showed me the pictures of his wife, his very skinny gir-fren and the other one oh-so-righteous gur-fren and JN himself. All I was interested in was the fact that he was not very attractive and none of the girlfriends were attractive also. This was of course NOT the whole point, the mee-rebus eating crowd told me.
The point was – a 50-year old seeming celebrity and the oh-so-young women and oh-how scandalous that is. They talked about it, picked at it, scrutinised it and pronounced him immoral and then went out to buy nasi lemak and coffee.
So possibly it is just one more bit of news to sell, one more scandal to read and feel indignant about and one more tit-bit to make us feel so much better than JN- the director of Money No Enough and many other rip-offs.
The long suffering Good Wife is probably just another woman whose interest is no longer on the man but on what the man brings to the table.
It has become one long tired tale so often told – full of sound and fury, signifying nothing 🙂 (I would write about the brief candle too if only I can remember the line) although JN is a far cry from Macbeth.
Ok so if I pick through the labryinth of your complex mind… :p are you saying that exhibitionistic tendencies exist because there is an insatiable, voyeuristic market out there who besides buying nasi lemak and teh tarik, provides the canvas for such sorry, sordid tales?! BOOMZ!….
The more fool we…. The media wins. The attention seekers get their two seconds of fame and the readers get the news splashed on their faces 😮 tsk tsk tsk…. I’m still staving off reading any of these stuff but I have similar nasi lemak buying folks who provide constant updates. I guess they need their outlets too 🙂
But back to more pertinent matters… Yah they all not pretty one!… 😮 what a waste of indiscretion :p Darkness might be better than even the light of a flickering candle… Leave poor Macbeth out of this … He is suddenly looking better in this light… 😀
I really don’t know what to make of this Jack Neo thingy…..it seems to have all the ingredients of a new Jack Neo movie. What I found a little bizzare is the meeting was held at some hotel and the media even knew about it. Even goes on to say that his wife was all calm about it…..call me cynical, but I smell a rat…almost like it is staged.
…or maybe it is the view of a man with limited multi-tasking abilities 😛 I visited a friend who celebrated their children’s 1 year birthday over the weekend. They have twins – one boy and one girl. My friend’s wife told me…..the boy is so uncomplicated….he eats, sleeps and complains his teeth hurt. The girl, on the other hand is alot more complex and harder to figure out….hahahaha….ooops…I digress again 🙂
Gee…I knew there was a reason why I didn’t read the story! Shouldn’t even have bothered to listen.
If it were staged, it’s a low blow. Another type of exhibitionism… Stooping so low to promote a movie! Playing and manipulating the public to commercial ends. Whichever lah it’s deplorable. It’s one publicity stunt too far. I’ve never been a fan anyway.
Regarding your digression, maybe you should write about it. You seem to have issues w 3D. The title could be “Why is 1D better?”.