Trends of the week

Pacquiao beats another boxer not named ‘Mayweather’

MANILA, Philippines - Take off your #PinoyPride hats for a moment. Breathe in the fresh neutral air. Stretch out the limbs of your boxed mind. Now ask yourself this: what in the world did Pacquiao vs. Algieri mean? The answer, if you open yourself up to it, is liberating: it meant absolutely nothing.

Professional boxing has been a running, not to mention very tired, joke for the past few years, where the heavyweight division is dead, and the two best welterweights in the world have managed to avoid each other. Floyd Mayweather, Jr. and Manny Pacquiao take turns beating overmatched opponents, adding fuel to the hype of a match that may never happen. After beating Algieri this week, Pacquiao sounded more resolute than ever about fighting Mayweather, as if that’s going to make any difference. “Oh, you really, really, really want to fight me?” Mayweather responds in Pacquiao’s imagination. “Why didn’t you tell me? I thought you were kidding all this time!”

I’m throwing in the towel.

Women rule the 2014 AMAs

The good news: female artists totally owned the 2014 American Music Awards. Bad news: it was another blah awards show in an era of blah awards shows. Apart from the notable performances by Taylor Swift, Charli XCX, Lorde, Jennifer Lopez, Iggy Azalea, and J-Lo and Iggy’s butts, there really isn’t a lot to be remembered years from now or even weeks from now. This isn’t a female pop artist problem — Taylor Swift just recently broke decades-old album sales records, after all — but an exclusively awards show problem. In an age where the Internet has assumed the combined roles of award shows, music charts, and MTV, all that is left for something like the AMAs to offer is a live venue and the promise of viral heaven.

That promise was left unfulfilled this week. J-Lo and Iggy Azalea did everything, short of lighting a fire with their derrieres, and they still failed to move the needle. The Internet is a jaded recovering crack-addict/pimp at this point. Sorry, ya’ll, but it will never break.

Why is Thanksgiving Day now a thing in the Philippines?

Thanksgiving trended in the Philippines because the Internet is a place where Negritos were apparently on the pilgrims’ guest list in 1621 New England. But we don’t really have much use for historical relevance when it comes to holidays, because pretending to be white and American is as rich a tradition here as any. So we hold our own Thanksgiving dinners and grab local “Black Friday” deals, secured in the knowledge that, while the seasons — like our whiteness — may only exist here in our imaginations, American retail chains are here for real.

Missouri burning

Another state in the United States of America has made it clear that you can shoot an unarmed person as long as that person is black. Darren Wilson — the Ferguson, Missouri police officer who shot unarmed teenager Michael Brown in broad daylight — was not indicted by a grand jury, which means he will not even have to go through a full trial where all evidence will be weighed, despite the undisputed fact that, again, Brown was shot while not holding any deadly weapon whatsoever.

This is your model of democracy, your Great White Dream, brown Philippines. I hope you’re watching intently.

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