"The pandemic of needing to be viral"

By Dziqrull Muhammad Putra 

Mahasiswa UIN Sunan Gunung Djati Bandung 

In this digitalization era what is the true value of an apology when it's coerced by a digital firestorm? The modern phenomenon of "viral accountability" forces a confession only after public shaming reaches a critical mass. This process may deliver a form of justice, but it cheapens the concept of remorse, reducing it to a transactional response to social pressure rather than a voluntary moral reckoning.

a lot of cases such as timothy who took his life after being bullied to such degree, only for the perpetrator to only apologize after the case gotten viral, while they laughing at him before getting caught red-handed, and this cases are just one in many. 

And this type of cases aren’t new either and the impact that this problem have on education are very significance, a lot of students now are arguing and generally be disrespectful to their own teacher, though it isn’t new it’s worsen by the concept of virality, a lot of these students sometimes film themselves bullying their own classmates or even filming themselves fighting with the teacher all of this for that 5-minutes of fame while following these are a lifetime worth of shame not just to themselves but also the people close to them. 

The cause of this cases are many especially it’s effect on education, a lot of students nowadays chases fame and virality instead of pursuing their academic/education, ranging from inappropriate dances to dangerous stunts these student now addicted to the thrills of their 5-minutes fame and the internet supplying these students the tools they need to be ignorant. 

What is the cause?

-lack of empathy 

A lot of children in Indonesia have a harsh parents that teaches their children to be tough or so they thought but in reality in a research conducted in The University of Cambridge and The University of College Dublin that involves 7500 childrens, that get harsher education from their parents in the age 3 are 1.5 times more susceptible to mental health issue and this correlate with how someone can’t develop empathy even when they’re grown up since their parents aren’t teaching their kids emotional intelligence (EQ). 

-moral degradation

The main perpetrator for moral degradation in indonesia is obviously social media, with how free it is to search and find anything in the internet children are more susceptible to morally wrong stuff such as NSFW material and just influencer in the general social media 

-significance of internet

Internet has become such a big catalyst for everything and anything ranging from news to even shopping, It isn’t a secret anymore that if you want to become famous you just need to become viral, but with it also come downsides such as bad people becoming viral and their action are getting supported by people on the internet. 

what is the effect on student education?

-viral vs educated

A lot of these so called influencers taught susceptible young students that education didn’t matter, one of such cases are Timothy Ronald who tells easily Impress student thst education didn’t matter and a bunch of other controversial takes, trying to make it as fact. 

-wanted to be seen

A lot of teenagers todays are obsessed on being viral, though it can stem from negligence instead of doing stuff that are useful they instead do stuff like dangerous stunt and innapropriate stuff just to get a couple of praises in the internet. 

in conclusion virality has become a tool of some sort, whether it being use for good or bad it comes from the person using it, it can be good such as making people aware to stuff and things happening in the world such as the war in gaza, but it can also be used in a bad way such as blackmailing and being posted without permission, in this era we need to fix the younger generation compassion and empathy so that when cases like this appear again it doesn't need to be viral first to be handled let’s make timothy case as the last cases of people taking accountability only after being viral.