The new idols?
MANILA, Philippines - Unintended and unconscious as it may be, Kimpoy Feliciano’s shoutout video to his fans echoes the impressive name-checking in Vladimir Sorokin’s The Queue. It’s highly likely that Kimpoy (real name Paolo Feliciano) has never heard of Sorokin’s masterwork, (if he has, good for him) but a harmless-looking three-minute video, where he thanks a small percentage of his fans early in his Internet celebrity life, carries an earnestness that endears him more to his hordes of followers.
Kimpoy has over 300,000 followers on Twitter. A tweet of a song lyric or Pinoy young adult-level observation gets a hefty number of favorites and retweets. He posts the most basic stuff that anyone between ages 10 and 16 can chime in to: thoughts about not waking up early, friendship, politics, and a lot of relationship advice. Kimpoy is 19, but some people think of him as a sage; a digitized fortune cookie that dispenses street level wisdom pumped up with gifs.
His followers clamor for his attention, literally. He gets hundreds of tweets and asks for follow-backs. To them, even a favorite or like from Kimpoy is enough to make their day. It’s the kind of hysteria that was enough to make Vice Ganda google Kimpoy’s name, which made for an even more hysterical link between the two (Vice Ganda has since denied rumors that they were romantically related, although he invited Kimpoy to guest on his Sunday night talk show). All this because of a video of Kimpoy saying the most ridiculous pick-up lines, churning them out with his googly-eyed charms. It’s the making of a superstar in real, but there’s something largely amiss in this equation.
The Fame Monster
The malleability of the Internet has offered kids like Kimpoy the opportunity to carve out their own yellow brick road to fame. While most things that spread virally have limited shelf life a mixture of accessibility, gestures of sincerity and availability can be a magnet for a short-burst career and a possible crossover to mainstream media.
Such is also the case of Jamich, a mash-up of the names of real-life couple Jam Sebastian and Mich Liggayu. Their videos, or what they call “short films” have enabled them to cross over into the mainstream, snagging TV guestings, music video appearances, and endorsement deals. Their most popular video, By Chance explains why the couple is such a pop cultural force to be reckoned with. It repurposes the most banal love story cliches. The couple’s undeniable chemistry makes everything work despite the awkward acting, corny lines, and cringe-inducing banter. It’s nothing spectacular. It’s a self-aware vehicle made for impressionable teens who still live by clans, fake kuyas and ates. Because what this all boils down to is the terrifying power that personalities like Jamich and Kimpoy hand over to their legions of stans.
The Dark Arts Of Stanning
One of the most notorious achievements of the digital age is its birth to a mutated species of fans. Trolling discussion boards and comment boxes of posts concerning their favorite artists, stans (“stalker + fan”, coined from Eminem’s ‘Stan’) are a more rabid form of followers, staying up day and night for online voting competitions like the Globe Tatt awards (stans of Kimpoy, Jamich, and Julie Ann San Jose have been clicking the vote button like crazy), fiercely protective to the point of launching online vendettas against detractors and potential threats. Stans make or break careers. Their seemingly innocuous messages of thanks are laced with a reminder of how much you owe them for the great lengths that they have gone to put you where you are now.
A Double-Edged Sword
Jamich and Kimpoy are standard bearers of a generation, they appeal to segment of the population that turns to monumental figures for inspiration and encouragement, however basic the connection may be. Their musings may be pedestrian at best, but these are the things that matter to kids: Knowing that one can relate to them and that someone is going through the same issues that they are mired in. What’s made figures like Kimpoy more relatable is that they are not prefabricated actors who jumped in on the bandwagon for a stab at relevance. These are a bunch of oversharing kids who thought that they had something significant to share.
With all the hankering and famewhoring online, it’s fairly easy to spot the narcissism that underlines it all. It’s as if to say, “Give us attention and we’ll make you famous, then we’ll lose our sense of individuality along the way.” It’s this death that presents a horrifying truth about today’s Me Generation; all helplessly glued-in to one hot-button topic while the shadows of even more pressing realities hound them. When the wave of good vibes of pick-up lines and kilig moments die down, what are these kids going to do when life decides to give them a hard-edged schooling?
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