The last few days I found myself hooked watching reels and Facebook videos of famous and funny social media personalities. It’s interesting to note that while at first I have not liked their pages, the AI of Facebook delivered the videos one after the other like dole out breakfasts and after a while I have marked their pages so that I will be prompted each time a new video or material is posted.
In short, in a span of five days, I have become a fan. While I find it funny and sort of a stress reliever I can’t help it but think and attempt to dissect how these ordinary people have become famous and moneyed by simply making short videos and reels documenting their daily lives with a tweak of comedy and earn millions of pesos (dollars) from every view they get.
Take for example the Capinpin brothers (family). There is nothing distinctively special about their content. It’s simply about the love of Sir Gavin for his family mixed with some romantic shorts for his girlfriend Elma who by now has resigned from her teaching job and focused on vlogging and live selling of her products. In no time since Gavin’s father died, he took over the role as the breadwinner but take note, a millionaire father figure who gives cars and millions of cash to his siblings as gifts on special occasions and even during ordinary days provided of course that such actions are within the frame of his camera and is posted on their social media account.
The bond they have as a family has been perfectly captured and is naturally seen on our android phones daily. Though there are jokes (prank) that are sometimes out of taste and portrayals that are too money-centered, their content generally speaking has projected the normal lives of the Filipino people and that for me made such contents special and saleable to the taste of every Filipino or perhaps even among other nationalities. An example of this is the usual motherly attitude of their mother Beth who would get mad each time her children attempt to sneak out of the house late at night and Sir Gavin would hand her a folded P100 thousand and almost instantly she relents and allows her boys to go out with a smile. I mean while there are moral issues on the act per se but tell me, almost all of our mothers are like that. The short video simply captured reality which has been experienced and is still being experienced by everyone else in real life every day. That’s why many love the Capinpin family.
Such appreciation did not end within the confines of their social media accounts. Mainstream products and new entrants have recognized their mass following and have made them products and services endorsers. They have even caught the attention of the mainstream media who have featured them in several feature stories. This is the point where I decided to dip my fingers on their popularity. The Capinpin brothers and the whole family have become role players if not models. In fact, they can now move an audience. Their contents which are basically revolving on family and the capacity to buy anything that they want can inspire people not necessarily to become content creators themselves. After all, not everyone was born to become social media personalities.
Certainly though, the power of these famous and sought after content creators can be used in popularizing and promoting the less famous agriculture or farming which is of topmost importance for the country. The attitude and culture both of individuals and the government have made farming less attractive and an affair best left to the poor and the marginalized. Given the massive following of these pop content creators, a regular push or initiative from their end to promote farming will create little by little a rekindled passion for farming and agriculture especially among the young. After all, if everybody gets to become social media personalities, who will plant and raise chickens for food?
In a time when everything revolves around social media, people would rather take videos or photos of agriculture related activities for content instead of aspiring to own a piece of land or put up a backyard scale of garden to augment food production and their daily needs. I can only hope that Sir Gavin and Elma and a lot more like them who have made it on social media could as well promote food production and agriculture instead of merely creating content to earn a living.
