If you don’t already know, the blogosphere is both beauty and bane because it is snarky.
PinkFreud gave an awesome $3 Google Answer (worth more actually) to the origins of snarkiness which you simply have to read. In cliffnotes style, you might understand it as a form of cynicism, sarcasm, and sometimes irrelevance. Despite a common attribution to negativity, it’s actually a complimentary term, signified by intellectualism and sheer balls. I feel that it’s intended to add the wrong colors to a paint-by-numbers world, just for the sheer pleasure and disdain for poorly constructed ideologies. Perhaps I’m high on my honey lemon tea, but can we consider snarky memes = “backdoor” propaganda? It’s a reversal, a discontinuation, but also a perpetuation of an idea all in one.
Which brings me to this…
Latest on the snarky trail is Singapore’s Media Development Authority’s so called “Sing along to the MDA Senior Management Rap“. It’s disturbia bad; the makes-me-ashamed-to-be-Singaporean kind of bad. But wait, there’s more to this…
I wonder who their target audience for this video is. If it’s the fellow citizens, perhaps they’re missing the point in trying to sell their ideas. Considering how wonderfully cultured Singapore already is, with tribes of Hokkien comedians and Singlish audiences (Singlish = English-based creole spoken and written colloquially in Singapore), our media authorities have rejected our identity but instead assimilated (poorly) a rap that’s barely lyrical in English. An alienation between the state and the people.
As blogger Carolyn noted, “and they are the people deciding media”. I shudder, but that’s unproductive no? Perhaps I should stop complaining and produce my own rap music video for under a $10 dollars entitled “I’m all about the KPIs” (See key performance indicators).
Enough from me, here are the top snarky responses I’ve gathered from the video:
- The almighty Gssq painstakingly lists the rap lyrics for your sick pleasure, and notes that “[a] car on fire is a very appropriate metaphor for this video”. Oh, and he wants his tax money back.
- The mysterious Tym reminds us that this is another “[r]eason #1 (yes, #1) the Singapore government’s attempts to “nurture” a media industry are doomed to fail.” She told Popagandhi that “it parodies itself”. Oh, and she too asks about taxes.
- In “Bad Stuff, Cannot Bluff“, Beeker realizes the unavoidable snarkiness of the situation, so he partakes by saying “all i can say is that i am VERY glad that i do not work at the MDA right about now ;)”. Damn it, he too says this is a waste of taxpayer’s money.
Moral of the story
All this validates the claim that we should either be very good, or very bad. Don’t be an in-between… be a freakin’ spectacle.
Oh, and could MDA tell us how much it cost to make the video?
If we don’t like it, can we get a refund in the next “progress package“?
Perhaps someone should read Seth Gordon’s The Big Dip.
Update: Elia Diodati point out another “classy” rap video by Certified Public Accountants in Hong Kong. Hmm, accountants having fun… now who belongs to the Tute?
