It seems that going out these days will land one an inquisition online — one seemingly can’t queue up to buy food without the dual cold gazes of smartphone cameras and their owners.
Said judgmental glares, of course, come from fellow citizens who, more often than not, also happen to be doing the same thing the ones being “shamed” are.
Someone decided to poke fun of this phenomenon, but when a Facebook page reposted them, it seems people took the stories at face value.
A man was visiting a certain McDonald’s outlet a day or 2 after they reopened across the island.
Commenting on his Instagram stories in a seemingly satirical fashion, he took a picture of the queue in front of him and captioned was a complaint about how people “never eat Macdonalds (sic) will die meh“.
Of course, he was in the queue himself, so anyone who can connect the dots would be aware that he also isn’t staying at home, getting Mac’s with everyone else.
Then in the following story, he labeled a few people standing in front of self-service kiosks making their orders as “socially irresponsible”
Even someone collecting their food wasn’t spared.
Then, in the final story he lamented over how he finally received his dabao-ed McDonald’s after 35 minutes.
“Would have been a lot faster (if) people are mature enough to stay at home,”, was the caption.
Taken at face value, you could have been forgiven for thinking that he was a pot calling the kettle black.
After all, wasn’t he outside buying McDonald’s with these other people he labeled “socially irresponsible”, too?
But there is a self-deprecating nature to these captions — anyone who sees it will know that he was there to buy food himself, and isn’t in a position to be judging others.
That he did so anyway means he was aware of what he was doing.
When SG Dirty Fella shared the stories and called the guy “socially irresponsible” as well, the post quickly went viral.
We all love a bit of schadenfreude — taking joy in someone else’s unhappiness or rejoice at their expense.
But the guy was likely being ironic.
A check on the man’s Instagram page shows that he’s privatised his account. Right before, he posted a story where it shows he’s aware of the coverage from SG Dirty Fella.
We’re not sure if anyone would post something like this if they weren’t already trolling.
However, by revealing the man’s handle, this may lead to unjustified flame from netizens and even revealing of his personal information, which would constitute as doxxing.
We all love some McDonald’s, especially after it shut for so long. But we’re also aware that it had to close for a reason.
Whatever your thoughts are about people who go out to queue for high-demand services, they shouldn’t extend to personal attacks or shaming them online if they aren’t doing anything wrong, like breaking Stay-Home Notice rules.
For what it’s worth, the stories were funny in a self-deprecating way. Hopefully more see the funny side to it and not jump to assume he was being obtuse.
As bad as it is to see people who unironically posts stuff like this online, there shouldn’t be vitriol directed at this guy.
Featured image adapted from Facebook and Facebook.
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