The twin triumph of Carlos Yulo in Paris filled up insatiable Filipino appetite for sports supremacy. The hungry country is so full with glory it hardly celebrated its 17th chess grandmaster. Daniel Quizon breached the 2500-rating barrier after beating a veteran grandmaster in the Chess Olympiad in Hungary. This despite the one million cash incentive the 20-year old genius is about to receive. Loose change, compared to Yulo s more than a hundred million cash package. Exactly why people are no longer awed, even if a million can feed a hungry more millions.
Just as no one noticed the first Filipina Muay Thai world champion. Islay Erika Bomogao ranked first in the world -45kg female elite category. Not because no one is reading the news anymore, but largely because the sport is lesser known in a country of men s basketball and now women s volleyball.
People still read, but not the hard copy. Today s generation would rather read news in their fingertip than flip a crisp broadsheet early morning over a cup of coffee. Minus the news, coffee breaks the fast for the hungry, only to starve again for the rest of the day.
Outside textbooks, Harry Potter is probably the last book kids read. Now they cannot even decipher cursive. Technology changed media industry altogether. The platform now is social media where fake news is winning. Stupidity too. And print media is in danger. Or endangered.
No more magazines. The once thick newspapers have thinned out before writers and editors lost their excess pounds. How can they when they work sitting down, sports writers write about intensity with inactivity. Sedentary, work style or lifestyle. But not everyone who play sports lose weight either, especially in climbing, social climbing.
It is difficult to delay decay, even harder to reverse change. Readers moved digital and advertisers followed the portal. But hunger for news survives anywhere anytime, especially lust for gossip, the universal pastime. Even the iconic Tupperware is now bankrupt. Ironically, the plastic food container lost its relevance in a world where everything is wrapped in plastic, especially the human face.
Some say however everything is biodegradable. It is just a matter of time. A cigarette filter lasts 10 years, plastic bag 20 years, coffee cup 30 years, cutlery at least a century, straw 200 years and a bottle 450 years. That s how long they litter the world. At some point in time they decompose, except styrofoam that lasts forever. Unlike love, but so like phoniness. Not only is it timeless, it is also ahead of its time. Everyone does it. Some just call it civility, others courtesy. Either way it is fakery.