A little late on the MDA “Senior Management Rap”

I was going to write this as a comment anyway, so might as well put it up here since its a great deal longer than facebook will allow me to post as a comment. While it it late, I don’t care. I have thoughts, I write them down here. Not everybody has ideas immediately, alright?

In reference to Peter Bronez’s piece here. And some background reading from Mr. Brown, Mr. Wang, and the general Singapore blog-milieu;

With all due respect to the video, is there some way to rationalise this special instance of bureaucratic behaviour by proposing some contextualised method of reasoning? I want to ask, why do they want to appear to be hip and why do they fail? Furthermore, this is the Media Development Authority (MDA) — a government agency which doesn’t seem to represent any segment of the industry. So, with respect to the economic growth and brain drain government, it seems like they’re trying to improve the image of the government, than any sector in particular.

I don’t know what drives them to try to appeal to that segment of society — those that know and indulge in hip-hop, and the 14-26 range. But why does it seem so ridiculous? Is it just poor rapping? Is the coolness not inherently found in hiphop but in the attitude? Is it the suits, and the old people, and the lack of over-the-top-pimpness?

The MDA in Singapore does 2 things in general: it funds things like films, and it regulates media licenses. So, it wants to project an air of promotion, as though they were PROMOTING rather than REGULATING the development of media.

But none of them seem to fit to the stereotypical of a person who has a stake in the development of the media (or the arts). They all dress in bland, dark suits, they hardly have any air of vibrant individuals committed to making things happen. Even with the video,they haven’t dispelled the notion that they aren’t merely just paper-pushers — they just seem like their boss had one of his ‘great’ ideas.

But consider the notion that with this video and the various public reactions, they’ve already achieved what they set out to do. To show that the MDA (and the government) is flexible, has autonomy, and all that which traditional bureaucracy doesn’t. But on the other hand, people do go, “stick with your day job, we didn’t pay taxes for a new music video.” It’s a classic shock tactic. While they might say that they’ve “consult the public”, I wonder how much consultation was done before and after, and whether there’s any qualitative analysis of the ‘consultation’ being done.

Anyway, MDA’s got off the wrong side of the “coolness” bed by BANNING MASS EFFECT. Thank goodness they’ve come to their senses.

Facebook is RUINED!

Please feel free to steal this image.

It’s ruined! RUINED I TELL YOU!

A Primer to Sartrean Ontology

Click to view. Just something I thought up for fun.

There’s a fault in this metaphor, that pac-man remains solid. I wanted it to be transparent or something to the effect to convey ‘nothingness’, but it didn’t work because then it wouldn’t be able to be seen clearly.