Janette Toral
Digital Filipino

LAST Tuesday night, I had a test webinar broadcast for a weekly webinar show, Viral Ideas, with bloggers Juned Sonido and Coy Caballes. We took turns discussing a viral idea, based on what we found online and from personal experiences.

What caught my attention recently was an essay written by a Korean club member of mine, Jaeyoun Kim, titled “My Short Essay About the Philippines.” His paper reflects his observation about Filipinos not loving the Philippines, resulting in our current state of affairs. He made comparison as to how much the people of Korea have made personal sacrifices in order to help their country grow. He also encouraged Filipinos to love their country and teach their children to do the same. That essay was written in September 2003.

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After typhoons Ondoy and Pepeng, that essay resurfaced again in Facebook and I found it in video form. I shared it and it still triggered emotional responses both from those agreeing and disagreeing with it. Running a search via Twitter on the keywords “korea essay Philippines” also shows Jaeyoun’s piece still being posted somewhere online and catching the attention of an Internet user.

I checked on Google search engine results to see how far this six-year-old essay has traveled the Internet. In 2003, there were only 2 known hits recorded by Google.

In 2005, however, it reached more than 200 and in 2009, more than 600 hits. When I say hit, I mean where the essay got posted or published either in forums, blogs, comments and in social networks.

I want to tease Jaeyoun about this and say that his essay is almost becoming urban legend. Jaeyoun is now in the US and is involved in various work related to the Internet domain name system.

There is much to learn about that essay and what made it viral.

First is the person who wrote it. Jaeyoun is a Korean. For most Filipinos, we see Koreans as those who either do business here or just study. Seeing them care or be concerned over how our country is doing is the last thing in our mind. That is why reading such an insightful piece from a person who cares about the country was striking.

There was also a lot of truth in the piece. In Filipino, we say “tinamaan ako” upon reading it. Those that were touched felt compelled to share the essay hoping that the same feeling can also be experienced by others and hoping it may even do good, no matter how small, in the country.

In analyzing the websites that published the essay, I was awed as there were forums that I never knew existed which reposted the story. These forums covered religion, hobbies, sports, entertainment, politics and various other community sites. Of course, there are also those who expressed disagreement with it.

Jaeyoun’s letter is truly a unique viral case study. It will surely make its mark in Philippine Internet history.

For follow-up discussion on this topic, visit http://digitalfilipinocom.ning.com