How I stopped succumbing to 'patol' culture
Every week, PhilSTAR L!fe explores issues and topics from the perspectives of different age groups, encouraging healthy but meaningful conversations on why they matter. This is Generations by our Gen Z columnist Angel Martinez.
Recent research shows that millennials and Gen Z make up a staggering 63% of the voting population. Political analyst Edna Co told GMA News that this could mean a gamechanging turnout for the upcoming election. Youth voters, or the digital generation, don’t only accept information as it’s presented to them but act on and shape them as well. We know how to elect the right people.
But truthfully speaking, I’m not sure how our generation can make a dent when most don’t seem to be aware that the midterms are coming up.
Based on what I’m seeing online, so many of us are hopping on inconsequential, nonsensical issues for the sake of having something to say. We weigh in on beef between unknown public figures, revive age-old fan wars to stir the pot, and cherry pick innocent posts from ordinary people and turn them into thinkpieces. Hot takes about harmless issues that do not affect us in any way still garner thousands of likes.
At first, I thought my aversion to the state of online affairs was a sign of aging. I was, admittedly, a keyboard warrior in my teenage years—my knee-jerk reaction to anything I saw was to scream it into the convenient online void. And when you’re chronically online enough, you gain a modest audience without trying very hard. I was 13 at the time, and I’d be lying if I said it didn’t go to my head.
The problem was I did not know much at that age. I was not some political pundit or an expert in any field of study. I was a Tumblr girl wannabe on an iPad Mini. I would spew explainer threads and snappy comebacks, all built on surface-level theory summarized from secondary sources. There was also this self-imposed pressure of having to produce immediately, or risk losing clout to someone with faster fingers. To maximize my reach, I weighed in on every topic on my timeline, treating K-pop agency scandals with the same fervor as injustices under the public administration. Basically, lahat na lang pinatulan.
In retrospect, I was a victim of what I aptly call "patol" culture: an offshoot of performative activism that compels us to give our two cents about even the most mundane issues. It’s the bare minimum way of engaging with the world around us, prioritizing having something to say over doing anything of substance. Some might do it for the likes, shares, and the dopamine rush that accompanies these metrics; I enjoyed the visibility that came with looking informed.
Somehow, "patol" culture is worse because it’s so exhausting. Most displays of activism are just the same. But as we rally against inequitable structures, our passion is supposed to sustain us. If we tackle both pursuits with and without real-world implications with the same fervor, we’re only speaking because we can. By the time we want to fight for something that actually matters, we’d be too burned out to try.
To be fair, anyone who wants to call out wrongdoings—no matter how micro it may seem in the grand scheme of things—could have their heart in the right place. But in a turning point like an election season, where this is much at stake, we need to start thinking and talking about what truly matters. Our attention spans can only take so much stimuli.
Much has been said about the role of critical thinking in a process like this. But a new competence is emerging in the field of psychological science that I feel is as important in an oversaturated attention economy: critical ignoring, or “choosing what to ignore and where to invest one’s limited attentional capacities.” Of course, this should not be confused with straight-up apathy. One is a callous and irresponsible choice amid today’s political climate; the other might be the antidote to "patol" culture.
Based on my experience, stepping away from "patol" culture starts with prioritizing slowness and establishing a sense of distance, which is antithetical to our always-on predisposition. I had to step away from the internet for the first time in years when I started reviewing for college entrance tests. When I entered university, I was too busy dealing with growing pains to participate in most discourse. I still kept abreast of pressing national issues like extrajudicial killings, but all the other fluff and fodder naturally fell away. I made my X account private for the first time since I created it.
According to Kozyreva, Wineburg, and Hertwig, the researchers that coined the term "critical ignoring," this is an example of self-nudging: ignoring temptations by removing them from our digital environments. Related strategies include lateral reading, or leaving a source to verify its credibility elsewhere; and do-not-feed-the-trolls-heuristic, or disengaging from obvious haters who add nothing productive to the conversation.
Once we’ve removed the distractions and reoriented our focus, we can finally allocate our attention—a notoriously finite resource—to important efforts that require more energy. Today, that looks like registering to vote and showing up to the polls, watching debates, familiarizing ourselves with the nuances in their platform, seeing which candidates align closely with our views, shedding light on the inaction of familiar names who are running again, and posing questions that will get those in our circles of influence to think.
In an online landscape that runs on instant gratification, it’s not wrong for us to think that the loudest, brashest, angriest ones care the most. But real change will not always have evident markers of success, immediate results after engaging with others, or guarantee of visibility. Deep work will always make more difference, although it’s not always seen. Weighing in and stepping up is something we do, not just because we can, but because we understand that there are greater risks if we choose not to.
Generations by Angel Martinez appears weekly at PhilSTAR L!fe.