"I Should Have Been Informed!": The Christopher Lao Controversy

Just this week, in the middle of the chaos of class suspensions and flooded streets, a viral video rocked the Internet and became a massive topic in social networking sites. 

A midst the PAGASA updates and CHED bashing, one name floated above the river of tweets recently: Christopher Lao.

Apparently, GMA 7 have timely covered a man who have miscalculated the depth of flood waters in a street in Metro Manila and have decided to, like those scenes in the movies with slow motion contemplation and Eye of the Tiger-ish theme songs, just go for it.

I personally found the video quite funny, his comments a bit egotistical, yes, but understandable. He was stressed after having unintentionally transformed his vehicle into a boat. It was a trying moment and not a lot of people would have had their wits with them after almost drowning in chest deep flood. At to that a nosy reporter who was right at his face the second he stepped out of the vehicle.

I however, do not understand the hate, the ridicule and the utmost animosity that have been in the feeds lately. The comments one YouTube channels are just plain mean and the various parody pages that have sprouted like mushrooms on Facebook are full of contempt and mockery.

Why the extreme hostility over someone who just happened to have said the wrong things in the wrong place at the wrong time? It's not like he insulted each and every one of our mothers or sculpted an image of Jesus with a penis on his face (CBCP was overacting, freedom of expression should exist in our society but that's another story).

I feel like in this decade of one-click sharing and unstoppable viral videos, things and situations can be extremely taken out of proportion and turned into this massive unseen monster that could ruin lives and reputations. Some people blame GMA7 for mishandling the story and maybe they did but, in my opinion, that's not the meat of the problem.

I may be an idealist here, but I frown upon the citizens of the Internet who have expressed their unrestrained and rather unfounded hatred for someone whom they've never met and never spoken to. Being funny is one thing, but harassing a person with the use of demeaning comments and below the belt insults are just plain rude and uncivilized.

The question is, if you were in the same position as Christopher Lao was, would you have reacted any better?

(Photos taken from Google Images)