Have we lost our values?

Friends reprimand me whenever I say that I’m old. Based on the current average human life span, I know I’m only at the halfway mark but recently, I can’t help but notice the gap between me and the youths widening. Some of their behaviour and thinking are so different from mine that it makes me wonder if I’m ageing at an accelerated speed.

I belong to the old camp and take a no-nonsense stand when it comes to handling kids but over the years, through my exposure and interaction with them in my voluntary work, I learn to understand their culture. I would consider myself quite adaptable to their ‘modern’ mentality by now. Even if I do not agree with some of their behaviours, I can keep mum about it and accept them as they are. My principle is, as long as the behaviour is not harmful, I am ok with it. Kids will outgrow their idiosyncrasies eventually.

There is one trend among youths which I find very disturbing and really cannot condone, and that is the habit of hurling verbal abuses or mouthing of all kinds of vulgarities. No, I’m not talking about our kids in cdac. They do spout some vulgar words sometimes but this post is not about them. We have fairly well-behaved kids at our centre ^_^.

Earlier this week, I was so stun when I read a post made by XX, one of our top local bloggers. She launched an ugly avalanche of accusations and vulgarities at LZB, a celebrity granny blogger. I found her long post of insults totally merciless. The girl must have lost her mind to write something so nasty and vulgar about a 69-year-old blogger.

This young blogger posted a couple of weeks ago a list of seven bloggers whom she considers the most disgusting in S’pore. She has always been a controversial blogger so such posts from her will not raise an eyebrow. In fact, to make it even more controversial, she included herself in that list. Her main attack was Steven L who honestly, is really disgusting but LZB was also in her hit list. XX’s comments about them obviously cannot be pleasant and when the old lady read her rude and crude comments, naturally she got upset and posted her reaction on her own blog. She claimed it was the saddest day of her life and then went on to express her disappoint at the attack and said some things which also were not that nice (she made some assumptions about the upbringing of XX) but nothing vulgar.

That post from LZB really got XX hot and furious and she retaliated immediately with that subsequent abusive post. I really got a rude shock when I read it. But thank goodness, she deleted it from her blog. I believe someone must have advised her to do that because it will definitely affect her future as a celebrity blogger and TV host/presenter. LZB is also an artiste under the stable of director Jack N. XX couldn’t be so stupid as to risk offending an influential director. Come to think of it, she was quite stupid to have posted it and let me read it…hehe!

XX loves to write controversial stuff because her readers love to read them. The original post was obviously her ploy to ruffle up the local blogging scene and start a crossfire of words among the bloggers. Why? To increase blog hits lah. She is a full-time blogger and the more readers she gets, the more she gets paid. Her first post alone received a thousand over comments from readers. It not only drew readers to her blog, it up the hits of the other bloggers too. It was a good ploy but unfortunately, she insulted an old lady who could not handle the game. XX ended up being the victim of her own game.

I’m quite eager to agree with LZB that XX’s behaviour has something to do with her upbringing. I mean which parent will allow their kids to have a total disregard for basic human values like courtesy, respect, responsibility and integrity, hurling foul-mouthed abuses and vulgarities at everyone and anyone? It’s not that occasional swearing of one or two words. I’m talking about the use of a whole dictionary of vulgarities in public. My dad would have killed me if I dare use such language.

What is truly disturbing is that XX does this quite often and yet the readers don’t seem to mind. Readers don’t find it offensive at all and a lot of them also left comments using the same set of vocabulary. Has this become a norm for our youths today? If it has, I will say the same words as LZB, “This is the saddest day of my life.”