When everything is an advertisement

The article reflects on the overwhelming commercialization of social media and the internet, lamenting the shift from genuine online interactions to aggressive monetization and content creation.

The author expresses nostalgia for the internet's early days and criticizes the superficiality of current digital platforms, noting how economic pressures force individuals to commodify their identities.

The piece also discusses societal issues such as the unaffordability of essential services and the lack of meaningful action during awareness campaigns, advocating for systemic changes to ensure a dignified life for all.

SEPTEMBER 30 — The only thing I can enjoy without reservation on TikTok is recipe videos.

"Here's the best way of reheating pizza."

"Yes, you can make butter mochi in your air fryer."

"Check out this instant ramen hack!"

Almost everything else on social media pretends to be imparting knowledge but inevitably ends with "If you'd like to know more, link below/in my bio!"

As the internet becomes so saturated with asks for follows, likes, subscriptions and DMs, it makes me miss the early days of the internet when people were making silly MySpace pages just to play their favourite songs.

Now the internet is just full of aggressive monetisation and "content creating" and while I respect the hustle, I would like my eyeballs to not be assailed with advertising 24-7.

I read about how in China there have been reports of people being unable to call emergency services because advertisements made it impossible to press the button.

Bring back the BlackBerries.

Bring back the legislation.

I think companies and individuals need to rethink how we make money and perhaps build some regulation around it all.

Instagram has become the site to monetise by peddling false narratives and overblown personalities.

Threads and Twitter (I still can't call it X) are now half-full of AI-written wannabe Reddit posts that give themselves away in the first sentence.

We have become a subscription-based society and I'm tired of it.

Instead of paying Microsoft to back up my files in the cloud, I now have two backup folders — one on a laptop, another on a portable drive.

I'm glad I got my 4TB drive months ago before prices skyrocketed; the same drive I bought is now almost twice the price.

October is around the corner which means it's also Breast Cancer Awareness Month.

I think plenty of people are aware it exists; I would rather people be aware of free or more affordable screenings for it, whether for women or men.

There's little awareness about the challenges for those with dense breasts, where mammograms might not be sufficient.

Screening for the BRCA and similar genes is also not as common here, likely because it's expensive.

I'm rather tired of all the superficial "pink-washing" where companies peddle tickets to events and merchandise, claiming they will donate not all, but some of the proceeds to worthwhile organisations.

This is Malaysia — how do I know the worthwhile organisation isn't some nepobaby's trust fund?

If companies wish to donate money just donate it instead of asking the public to subsidise said donations by increasing their profits.

I'm not going to pretend I don't occasionally do self-promoting things — like crowdfunding to literally save my life and my Ko-fi and TNG links are still floating around on the internet, because who doesn't like money?

Yet it is tiresome to see the internet becoming just one gigantic pay-per-view.

I guess things had already started going downhill when clicks became internet currency, views and followers became measures of worth and it was always about riling up the internet with the freshest clickbait.

But we are also living in a world where honest toil doesn't mean an easy honest living.

I dread the day when snatch thefts again become common because it's no longer more profitable to earn a legal wage delivering food than grabbing handbags.

The older I get the more I see that working hard is overrated.

Sure, getting good at skills, human interaction and such should be encouraged. Effort is not the problem here.

It's when people are working multiple jobs to pay rent and feed their children, and getting MEF stalwarts to agree to paying living wages leads to them clutching their pearls because they'd have to buy one fewer Mercedes this year, that you wonder how any of this is right or just.

Everyone should get to eat. Everyone should have a place to call home. Children, whatever age, should be able to go to school and be children without having to choose between starvation and future upward mobility.

I'm glad I didn't get more conservative as I got older. If I were any more "woke" I wouldn't be sleeping.

It shouldn't be radical to think that everyone deserves a dignified life with their needs met but for now the only choice some people have is to monetise their faces, voices and personalities for as long as they are good enough products for the masses to consume.

The only way we can escape this commodification of our attention is to turn away, put down that phone, sit on the grass... for as long as we can afford to.

Because otherwise we will remain hostage to a world that is built on trapping our eyeballs in a neverending loop of mass consumption.

* This is the personal opinion of the columnist.

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文章反思了社交媒体和互联网的过度商业化，感叹从真正的在线互动转向了激进的盈利和内容创作。

作者对互联网的早期时代表达了怀念之情，并批评了当前数字平台的肤浅性，指出经济压力迫使个人将自己的身份商品化。

文章还探讨了基本服务价格昂贵、宣传活动缺乏实质性行动等社会问题，倡导进行系统性变革，以确保人人都能过上有尊严的生活。

9月30日——在TikTok上，我唯一能毫无保留地享受的就是食谱视频。

“这是重新加热披萨的最佳方法。”

“是的，你可以用空气炸锅做黄油麻糬。”

“快来看看这个方便面妙招！”

社交媒体上几乎所有其他内容都假装在传授知识，但最终都不可避免地以“如果你想了解更多，请点击下方链接/我的个人简介！”结尾。

随着互联网上充斥着请求关注、点赞、订阅和私信的内容，我不禁怀念起互联网早期人们创建那些滑稽的 MySpace 页面，只是为了播放自己喜欢的歌曲的时代。

现在互联网上充斥着咄咄逼人的盈利模式和“内容创作”，虽然我尊重这种努力，但我希望我的眼睛不要24小时不间断地受到广告的骚扰。

我读到过一些报道，说在中国，有人因为广告遮挡而无法拨打紧急服务电话。

让黑莓手机重返市场。

恢复立法。

我认为公司和个人都需要重新思考我们赚钱的方式，或许应该围绕这一切建立一些监管措施。

Instagram 已成为通过兜售虚假故事和夸大个人形象来牟利的平台。

Threads 和 Twitter（我仍然不能称它为 X）现在充斥着大量人工智能撰写的、试图模仿 Reddit 的帖子，这些帖子在第一句话就暴露了它们的本质。

我们已经变成了一个订阅制社会，我对此感到厌倦。

我现在没有付费让微软将我的文件备份到云端，而是有两个备份文件夹——一个在笔记本电脑上，另一个在移动硬盘上。

我很庆幸几个月前在价格飙升之前就买了4TB的硬盘；现在我买的同款硬盘价格几乎翻了一番。

十月即将到来，这也意味着乳腺癌防治宣传月即将到来。

我认为很多人都知道它的存在；我更希望人们能够了解免费或价格更实惠的筛查服务，无论男女。

人们对乳腺致密者面临的挑战缺乏了解，因为对于这类人群，乳房X光检查可能不足以确诊。

在这里，BRCA 及类似基因的筛查并不常见，可能是因为费用昂贵。

我实在厌倦了所有肤浅的“粉饰”行为，这些公司兜售活动门票和商品，声称他们会将部分收益捐赠给有价值的组织，而不是全部收益。

这里是马来西亚——我怎么知道这个有价值的组织不是某个富二代的信托基金呢？

如果公司想捐款，那就直接捐，而不是通过增加利润来要求公众补贴这些捐款。

我不会假装自己偶尔不会做自我宣传的事情——比如众筹来拯救我的生命，我的 Ko-fi 和 TNG 链接仍然在互联网上流传，因为谁不喜欢钱呢？

然而，看到互联网逐渐变成一个巨大的付费观看平台，实在令人厌倦。

我想，当点击量成为网络货币，浏览量和粉丝数成为衡量价值的标准，而一切都变成了用最新鲜的标题党来煽动网络舆论时，事情就已经开始走下坡路了。

但我们也生活在一个诚实劳动并不意味着就能轻松过上诚实生活的世界里。

我害怕有一天，抢劫案会再次变得普遍，因为现在合法送外卖赚钱的利润不如抢包赚钱。

年纪越大，我越觉得努力工作被高估了。

当然，我们应该鼓励学生努力提升技能、人际交往能力等等。努力本身并不是问题所在。

当人们为了支付房租和养活孩子而身兼数职，而让MEF的坚定支持者同意支付生活工资却让他们大惊小怪，因为他们今年就得少买一辆奔驰车时，你就会怀疑这一切究竟是对是错。

人人都应该有饭吃。人人都应该有家可归。无论年龄多大，儿童都应该能够上学，享受童年，而不必在饥饿和未来向上流动之间做出选择。

我很庆幸自己年纪大了没有变得更保守。如果我再“觉醒”一点，恐怕就睡不着觉了。

认为每个人都应该过上有尊严的生活，并且他们的需求得到满足，这不应该是一种激进的想法，但就目前而言，有些人唯一的选择就是将自己的脸、声音和个性货币化，只要它们对大众来说还是足够好的产品，就可以继续这样做。

我们摆脱注意力被商品化的唯一方法就是转身离开，放下手机，坐在草地上……尽可能长时间地坐着。

否则，我们将继续受制于一个将我们的眼球困在永无止境的大众消费循环中的世界。

* 这是专栏作家的个人观点。

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