So much drama in Malaysia

 

Celebrity host and entrepreneur Noor Neelofa married preacher Muhammad Haris Ismail last year and gave birth to baby Bilal early this year. Since his birth, Neelofa has not publicly shown the face of her son.

According to reports in the media, Neelofa stated that she was not ready to share photos of her son because she did not have enough knowledge of the harm such an act would have on her child.

However, Neelofa (above) still managed to post quite a number of updates about her son for the past eight months, prompting the much-desired excitement from her fans.

Once, she uploaded a baby photo of herself and remarked that her son looks exactly like her when she was a child.

And then there was a video uploaded by Neelofa, showing off some RM14,000 Raya money collected by the child during the Syawal celebration this year.

On other occasions, she continued to tease her fans and followers by uploading pictures of Bilal with an emoji sticker pasted on the child’s face. Other times, she made sure the photo angles did not expose Bilal’s face in full.

For a mother who claims to be protecting her child from the cyber world, Neelofa has been doing such a crappy job. Or maybe it was all a publicity stunt.

Clearly, Neelofa knows what she is doing. Everything she shares in her postings is content to bait her followers and keep them entertained, making sure they are hungry for more. After all, that is how social media works.

Anyhow, what she did not expect is to have someone else, a total stranger, be the first to upload a clear photo of her Bilal, thus feeding all the hungry souls in Neelofa’s fanbase.

Neelofa got annoyed when she found out about the widely shared photo and video of eight-month-old Bilal on social media. She blamed the individual who uploaded the content as being disrespectful to her family's privacy, claiming that she should have been the one to first reveal Bilal’s photo to the public.

So then, Neelofa all of a sudden decides to end her protection for her son from the cyber world and instead feed the internet with a video consisting of various photos of Bilal since birth.

At the time of writing this article, the Instagram post which was uploaded less than 24 hours ago received more than 800,000 likes with more than 29,000 comments.

Her fans are clearly very happy. Me? Not so much. I will tell you why.

The truth is, I am annoyed with celebrities like Neelofa. I cannot stand our culture which celebrates celebrities to a fault. I struggle to find a reason to understand why people are obsessed with these celebrities and their lifestyles which add no value to ours.

People see celebrities and value them as a reflection of the life they wish they have. Sadly, what people don’t realise is the fact that most of these celebrities look at the average population the same way a farmer views his cattle.

I honestly wish the majority of Malaysians would wake up from being addicted to this crap.

The chosen ones

Politicians like Najib Abdul Razak are also celebrities in their own way. They are entertaining, outlandish, larger than our own lives, and command our attention. In fact, Najib is still one of the most influential political figures in Malaysia despite controversies because he succeeded in doing just that.

In 2019, we saw Najib travelling to rural areas, eating at stalls, posing for photographs and uploading this content to highlight himself as a Malaysian leader.

Despite becoming the butt of jokes and memes online, his ‘Malu Apa Bossku?’ tagline is still widely used. In fact, although behind bars, Najib is still addressed as ‘Bossku.’

And the worse thing is, his supporters remain loyal to him and his party.

Najib’s friends seem to be following in his footsteps. Presenting themselves to their audience wearing some seven-thousand-ringgit Burberry shirt and watches worth more than what most of us make in a year, they appear almost like a megastar.

Sometimes I wonder if these politicians think they are some sort of a living, breathing demigod who is immortal. After all, they quite often feed us with their self-proclaimed prophecy of being ‘the Chosen Ones.’

Like most celebrities, these chosen politicians deliberately form a relationship with their audience to remain relevant. With the platform given to them, they make us believe that they are capable of adding something positive to our lives if only we give them our trust.

Many of us end up giving them so much value that we become loyally blinded. We start worshipping them and they start believing they need to be worshipped.

What have these people done for us and our society anyway?

I don’t know how exactly we got off track, but I find it troubling that people can’t tell the difference between folks who deserve our praise and admiration and people filled with hot air and crap.

The truth is, no one would value a person unless they felt that they added something positive to their lives.

Take Najib’s friends – Ismail Sabri Yaakob, Muhyiddin Yassin, and Ahmad Zahid Hamidi for example. I personally don’t value them because they have not added anything positive to my life. If they disappeared from the face of the earth, it wouldn’t make a difference to me.

Of course, I don’t wish anything bad to happen to them, but I don’t really celebrate when something good happens to them. I just don’t give a crap about them.

But truth be told, Ismail Sabri, Muhyiddin, and Zahid do have a lot of people who worship and value them. Somehow, to these people, these three stooges add something positive to their lives.

You’d probably know by now that I am not a sucker for celebrities, however, I do agree that not all celebrities are destructive or disruptive.

There are many who are producing music, creating films, publishing books, making names in sports and representing the interest of people. These celebrities add value to our lives. They contribute to society by being a part of our human experience.

Others contribute by getting our attention one way or another.

I do hope we become a wise and mature society that stops putting celebrities on pedestals for superficial things. Though I doubt anything would possibly change in the next 60 days or so, I wish someday we would be able to celebrate those who are more deserving of our adoration. - Mkini

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FA ABDUL is a multi-award-winning playwright and director in the local performing arts scene, a published author, television scriptwriter, media trainer, and mother. Her ultimate mission in life is to live out of a small suitcase.

The views expressed here are those of the author/contributor and do not necessarily represent the views of MMKtT.