Just wanted to share a realisation I had recently.
My country is one of those countries currently having cases of the Wuhan coronavirus from China.
The news about this everyday is pretty alarming and people in my country are already scared and panicking after reading the news reports about the virus.
There are many people all stocking up on gas masks and behaving like some zombie apocalypse has started.Or maybe people here are thinking that people from China are like vampires who would infect them with some incurable disease.
Iām not at all worried or panicky these days. Iāve had an understanding that mainstream media and social media platforms put up news for an agenda. They are like vampires, feeding on our emotions to profit, survive and grow. Their ultimate aim is to get attention by arousing certain emotions in the people who consume the news and push forward an agenda. That is a reason why there is so much bias, so much fake news and so much exaggerated news these days.
On another note, I donāt know whether myself just rewatching on youtube a popular vampire-themed TV series made in Hong Kong in the late 1990s shortly before this whole coronavirus thing became part of the daily newsfeed made me see vampires in everything. Today I attended my 7-year nieceās birthday party and she was dressing up in a black costume and she was asking for her ācapeā. For a while I thought she was trying to dress up as a vampire.
Anyway, I have been telling myself that as a human I am not obliged to let the media profit by letting them manipulate my emotions. Why should they? They are all have some kind of agenda when reporting and donāt want to report on the truth any more. I shall not panick and I shall not fear.
I told a friend of mine who is living in Shanghai at the moment that I donāt seem to really be worried or affected. He tells me the situation is 10 times worse that what is being reported. In my mind, Iām just telling myself āMy thoughts become reality only when I pay attention to them. The media wants us to pay attention to them so that they will continue to exist.ā
In any case, I know that the world will stop paying attention to the news about this virus after 3 months, or after 6 months. Humans have poor focus - they need to constantly find something novel to read about. Once something grows stale, the media will go hunt for something else more newsworthy.
There is still a war going in Syria, and Hong Kongers are still protesting. Why doesnāt the media still pay attention to those issues?
Well, I think we can only say that we are all human.