Earlier this year, I happened to pass by a career fair taking place in a school near my home. The young staff passed me a Singtel promotional flyer which showed various teenagers with large thought bubbles - revealing rather lewd thoughts. Okay you may think i'm a prude but with 2 young children (who might attend the same school as this one in the future) - i really wasn't amused.
It disturbed me so much that I decided to write in to the ST Forum (again). They published it online on 18 January 2010. This is the original version (since they have already removed the editied published version from their website):
At a recent career fair for young students, I was handed a promotional flyer by school staff for Singtel’s new marketing campaign, the theme of which was “Express yourself freely”.
The front page showed a young boy smiling with the words “I once sent a naughty SMS to my professor thinking it was my girlfriend.”
At the back was a couple – a boy and girl sitting next to each other. They were supposed to be on a date but the girl happily admitted that “I sat next to him and sent SMS to my ex-boyfriend.” Her boyfriend was also smirking, feeling quite pleased that he was able to chat online with his ex-girlfriend without the other girl knowing.
What kind of messages – subtle or otherwise – is Singtel trying to convey to its targeted audience? As a parent, it was not so much the nonchalant attitude of the handsome-but-dirty-minded-guy that bothered me, but the fact that the two lovebirds appeared to have no qualms about two-timing each other (with the help of Singtel technology, of course). It was obvious that while they were together on a date, they would rather use technology to chat with their old flames rather than enjoy the physical presence of their current boy/girlfriend.
Singtel is often referred to as a government-linked corporation. My question, therefore, is: Do the business and government leaders of our country regard the moral fibre of our youth to be degenerated to such an extent these days that such immoral messages are necessary in order to generate more business for a company? Or that Singaporean parents are all too busy working and leaving their child-raising duties to foreign maids and childcare institutions to notice and make a stand about it?
If that is so, then we should have no problem about seeing more adverts telling us how mobile technology could enable us to cheat in exams, or to visit “naughty” websites while at work. Special mobile plans could also be offered to married men who want to chat with their girlfriends without the knowledge of their wives. All these would certainly be in line with the spirit of Singtel’s campaign – the empowerment to do whatever we want, whenever we want, without regard to consequences.
http://comment.straitstimes.com/showthread.php?t=29241
Sunday, August 1, 2010
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