(Disclaimer: This is a raw, emotion-driven product
of the author’s less-than-sober mind, and was written with little to no
research, spiced with slices of sarcasm, hyperbole and pop-culture
references—so please don’t take this too seriously, just like you shouldn’t
take anonymous texts saying “You’re cute” too seriously. Seriously.)
There she was, channeling
her inner Cherie Gil, busting out a repetitive hashtag-worthy line that trended
all over the world, climaxing emphatically in a statement delivered in a
spectacularly condescending tone that would make any teleserye kontrabida proud—“I’m just returning the favor.”
Boom.
We all just witnessed the
most electrifying random rage moment in the history of caught-on-tape Pinoy
random rage moments, the video that shook the world on its foundation. Let me
break down for you how mind-bogglingly awesome and socially significant this
was.
Surely, Pinoy
random rage moments caught on tape are nothing new. They have been uploaded in
cyberspace and broadcasted on primetime news programs time and again—some
barely go unnoticed and end up in some lonely area of the Youtube universe
called the “50 views or less zone” while some become certified blockbusters,
slip into mainstream consciousness, cause a tsunami of reactions and spawn an
entire specie of internet memes. The certified hits have had the effect of
turning the ones in the video instant cult villains, their famous mugs getting
printed in bond paper and turned into targets for airsoft practices, or become
objects of Vice Ganda parodies in Showtime. Before Amalayer Girl, there was
Christopher Lao, the infamous “Mr. I-was-not-informed” (he is now a lawyer, I don’t
know if he remains the same douche), then there was the carabao-ish Robert
Blair Carabuena, the MMDA-beater. Both of whom were internet super villains who
just got bumped off the top spot of the “Most Vilified Pinoy Youtube Sensation”
when Paula Jamie Salvosa showed up.
The impressiveness of
Amalayer Girl’s outburst lies on the random awesomeness of its delivery—which is
what Lao and Robert Blair lacked. Lao’s tirade sounded like one from a typical
Chinoy rich kid law student who probably owns a car given by his rich parents
on his 16th birthday—totally not unexpected. Carabuena’s violent eruption
looked typical coming from one burly corporate executive who has probably been
bullying small guys all his life. But Ms. Salvosa’s explosion looked like it
came out of the big screen. The dialogue sounded like it was plucked from a
Star Cinema infidelity-themed movie. But it was as real as it can get. You have
a Pinay college student serving up a mouthful of pilit-English on a helpless female Filipino guard who probably only
finished first year in a Tesda-accredited course. Why English? Something must
be up with the English language that endears it to douchebag condescenders. As
if using the language to berate someone instantly puts them into illustrado-mode, to strike fear into the
hearts of the (perceived-to-be) less-educated. She could have spoken Filipino
and communicated her thoughts and feelings much more technically-sound than how
she delivered it in the video. But lo and behold, she used English, a language
that by the sound of it, is obviously foreign to her. But what she lacked in
pronunciation, she more than made up for in diction. She sold her kontrabida qualities so undeniably well that
while watching the video, one could not help but think that maybe it was all a
show, a ploy by the girl to get noticed by some artista agent. Maybe it was part of a grand scheme to entice Johnny
Manahan to cast her in some afternoon soap and groom her to be the next Bella
Flores, who until now has no worthy successor.
To be certain, we have very
little knowledge of Amalayer Girl’s background. Where are her parents? Did she
not get enough breast milk before she turned two years old? What ice cream
flavor does she like? Was she neglected during childhood? Did she lose badly in
some Declamation Contest in school when she was in elementary? What television
shows did she enjoy watching while growing up? Was she a victim of some
lascivious act by some family member while in puberty? Did she root for Clara
in Mara Clara? Is she trying to apply as call center agent? We cannot
completely map the series of people and events that transpired in her life so
as to form at least a cursory analysis of how someone like Amalayer Girl is
concocted. Likewise, we also have limited information on how her day was during
that fateful encounter with Ms. Lady Guard. Was she just having a bad day? Did
she just get humiliated in her class after she could not answer during
recitation in Trigonometry? Was she just dumped by her boyfriend for an HRM
student via text? Did she just get pooped on her shirt by some random bird on
her way to the MRT station? That when she encountered the Lady Guard, with all
the accumulated weight of the awfulness of the events in her day, she just snapped.
We may never know the answers.
Still, no matter how dreadful
her day was or how deprived she was growing up, there is just no way to justify
the hideousness of her handling of the situation. Sure, she did not deliver a
blow. Sure, she did not curse at the Lady Guard. But the way the Amalayer Girl
delivered her piece had “bad manners” written all over it. You know the feeling
when someone does something which is not innately wrong but the way he did it just
looks and feels wrong. The same feeling I got watching Lebron James’ “The
Decision,” when he had to broadcast on primetime television that he was
ditching her probinsyana-girl (Cleveland) for the city vixen (Miami)—there was
nothing inherently wrong with what he did, but it still felt and looked wrong. Same
goes here with Amalayer Girl’s reaction. Amalayer Girl reacted like an absolute (insert
a word that means female canine here) on that very moment plain and simple.
On a final note, these random
displays of rage—Lao’s, Carabuena’s and Amalayer Girl’s in particular—bring to
light three noteworthy things. One, the arrogance of the Privileged has become
more rabid as of late; two, the emotional restraint of individuals when
confronted with a situation where their ego is compromised still has to reach the
desired degree in spite of the advancement of civilization; and three, random
rage videos have now displaced sex videos as the fastest way to multimedia
stardom.
The Amalayer Girl incident
showed us the ugly consequences of losing cool, of failing to exercise
restraint in an instance when a Robert de Niro 10-second stare at the Lady
Guard’s direction would have been enough to get the point across, of failing to
just agree to disagree, of just shutting off emotions for a few seconds and
just consider that the other was just probably having a bad day and just went
on her way. It did not have to end this way for Amalayer Girl, if only she learned
the virtue of restraint.
Maybe Israelis and
Palestinians could learn a thing or two from this.
