Why you should be slow to follow Faceless-book pages!

I have had plenty of extra time on my hands in the past few days, on the mend, recovering from a frightful case of tonsillitis, (nights curled into fetal position rocking back and forth in perceived cold shivers, under multi layers of mink blankets - whilst sporting high temperatures above the 40 celsius mark).
After an overnighter at the Emergency Room on Sunday night; got poked with needles for blood tests, Iv drips, and high doses of penicillin - I was back home before the children woke up for school on Monday.
A strictly five days off work medical certificate from the Doctor validated a whole lot of television and Internest  (a cocoon of warm soft blankets and cushions, that you surround yourself with while you browse the internet) surfing, from the comfort of my couch these past two days!

The sickation (sick leave/vacation) didn't last long. I got bored watching Dr. Phil and that Jeremy Kyle lie detector test show, so I decided to do a bit of investigation for myself on facebook.

There are so many pages/groups that we come across on facebook and that's great! A lot of these groups/pages promote Healthy Living, Exercise, Eating Well, Clean Eating; promotes Civil Rights, Women and Girls Empowerment, Weightloss, Cooking, and more. My favorites are the ' motivational quotes ' pages - now those ones have a positive clear message. To motivate and impact positive thinking and actions amongst individuals. You don't have to be a psychologist or a well accredited counselor for that - you just need some life experiences, compassion and positivity!

There are business and private organisations' pages, which are often always obvious and have the legit look. They have websites, actual addresses, mail box/postal addresses, contact phone numbers, and they have feasible products that they're trying to sell.

Then there are the corporate players and power house organisations, like the UNDP, or the National Party, Prime Minister John Key, Government Departments and Corporations, All Blacks, Mainstream News Agencies like TNVZ One News, NZ Herald online, Stuff.co.nz, Financial institutions, Banks, Franchises, Supermarkets, Cinemas, Malls; you name it - it's on facebook. You'll be sure they'll have Twitter, Instagram, Tumbler and all those other social media networks that I can never have the time to learn more about.

But the pages that I became particularly curious with were the ones taking authority of specific cultural or ethnic representations.

Often targeting their audience with a tone of humour when addressing them, and taking on random titles like - 'Confessions of a Samoan Princess', 'Samoana', 'Polynesian Warriors', 'Paradise', 'One Love', 'Pacific Islanders' the list is endless.
At first, most of it all looked harmless, just promoting cultural arts, traditions, basic ethnic language awareness, scenery for the adventurous tourist. I thought, hmmmmmm not much of a threat to the general public.

But then I come across a random one promoting views on youth and social development as well as employment. I walk through the statuses of the last three to four months' (Yes I was truly bored but too ill for the mind to do any 'real' work) posts, calling all unemployed people to get off the couch and go to work (okay - I agree with you to some extent there, I consider this a case by case basis), then proceeds to shame all the unemployed.

Not long into my enquiries and I figure out who the admin is... one of their followers makes a comment tagging their name to it and they respond under the page name (huge giveaway). I check out the tagged admin's profile, and wha la - "Officially finished the semester today, (hashtag) jobless, if you see me be generous and buy me some lunch! - Laugh Out Loud emoticon."
Sistah looked to be in her 20 years of life of on earth, or early twenties and never held a job in her entire life.

Then I find another one, this one is a lot more brave, more opinionated, strong views, valid points, good researched topics, she/he is what the blogging world would deem as someone getting their blogging ideas from the views of others (as most of the posts are extended posts of similar opinions raised elsewhere).

Then I come across an assertive post with a beautiful picture of a woman bearing markings of the traditional malu tatoo for Samoan women, cracking a coconut shell, about to scrape the coconut off the shell for preparation of either a umu or a fa'alifu. It's not clear in the photo which traditional cooking procedure she was about to embark on - but the status read; "How about we make it a rule - that you must learn to cook a umu first before you can get a malu?"
I sneered at this - it was clearly a very immature generalisation, and one may consider it shaming other women who have taken the traditional markings.

How does one make the assumption that all women who have had a malu, have not had the experience of making a umu, or preparing a fa'alifu? Just because they either chose not to post pictures (or don't have any pictures) of them cracking a coconut, or squeezing coconut milk with a tauaga? For all you know, they could have just been posing for the photos and then immediately handed the task back to the actual people preparing the food!

So I did a bit of digging, found their true profile, early-mid twenties, unclear whether they were born in Samoa or NZ, but one thing was clear, they have never prepared a fa'alifu or a umu before (at least in the traditional way)!

There are pages outright shaming young women and girls. The vulgarity of the language used is abhorrent and disgusting. It is disappointing to see how the youth of my country are spending most of their time and to read their tunnel vision views. It didn't take long for me to figure out that the administrator/s were based out of Samoa. What's more insane are the amount of mutual friends that I have, who have liked these pages!

That's easy - you go to the 'friends who have liked this page button' and boom!

Really people? Wouldn't you rather be reading up or following a page more beneficial to your health, lifestyle, personal development and or matters of current affairs?

Alarmingly, these pages are attracting thousands of followers. I'm theorising that this is mostly due to their 'humour' tone, use of everyday basic 'slang' language - it appeals to the younger generations, and mostly divorced, widowed or single men and women. (Yes I took the time to connect a common pattern of the followers of these pages).

I'm not going to name these faceless armchair heros. No - that would be way too much irresponsible fun, and no this post is not about calling them out and hanging them to dry. I do not stand to gain a thing from that at all.

This is for you reading - yes you - so you can start making better informed decisions and be a little bit more cautious and inquisitive of the authors of the material that you're reading. For all you know, you could be learning about the heirachy of the matai system from a first year university student, barely out of their twenties, with way too much time on their hands. Or you could be getting job search tips, or ideas of what unemployment and employment ought to look like from someone who has not held a job in all of their young life!

You may be learning and getting influence on critical issues of gender equality, ethnicity, identity and culture from someone who may still be struggling with the infamous Lemalu Tate Simi question - 'Who am I?'

There are some credible pages with similar tones, audiences, key messages and values floating around on facebook.
Here's a tip - the authors or administrators usually invite you to LIKE their pages themselves.
Sometimes, your friends invite you to like these pages.
Hold them (page authors/administrators) to account - make the effort and send them a message (there are no rules stopping you), simply inquire - who they are, so you're aware of who's behind the page and the information provided.
Become a responsible facebooker. Be responsible and alert of the information that you expose yourself and digest. More importantly, make it your business to know your source.
Another tip - usually the credible authors/administrators who use random titles for page branding and property authentication - repost their statuses onto their personal pages. From there you may decided for yourself whether the information portrayed by that specific person comes from a place of experience, credibility, learned knowledge that you can trust or perhaps their information requires a bit more analysing.

Its important to know who your authors are - especially where intricate matters of social and cultural issues are concerned. Information is only as good, valueable, and helpful as it's source. Social media is so readily accessible worldwide, it is vastly becoming the 'new' mainstream media. But with no academic, experience, expert knowledge filters, it's any man's game really.
It's worrying if the opinions and subsequently therefore, the understanding of people, on what their cultural and ethnical values; become hugely influenced by unsolicited inexperienced, often biased and inobjective views of some random faceless-book pages.

The number one rule of credibility is crediting the source of information.
It is purely why I choose to blog under my real name, and run a facebook page for an upcoming online Magazine venture that I'm working on - aligned to my real name. Many prominent journalists, authors, writers; you'll find, use their real names to run facebook pages and blogs for that very core reason. That credibility is fundamental to integrity of information and source.

If you're going to have an opinion about matters that impact on individuals' wellbeing and the wider community in general, then by all means, may you have the resilience and enough heart to face their feedback and criticism.

How I met Jerry Collins

I know. You read the the title above and probably rolled your eyes thinking, darn, here's another one. Every Samoan around the globe either associates themselves as his cousin, brother, friend, colleague, neighbour, uso you name it. Especially now with so much publicity surrounding his sudden death - he is a rugby great after all.
But this post isn't about that at all.

The tragic car accident that has led to his sudden departure and the devastating conditions surrounding his death, the death of his wife Alana Madill, and their 3 months old daughter fighting for her life in hospital - has shocked the whole world, not just the Samoan communities. It shocked me so much - that I've had to put a hold on my studies for next week's exams to blog about it.

It has shocked the rugby community worldwide.

The shock, coupled with the terrifying aftermath of a child orphaned by such a cruel twist of fate, events, life or whatever you may wish to call it - has left many fans, friends and families heartbroken as witnessed all over social media networks. The tragedy is a strong message to all of us, of just how flimsy this life that we live can be.

You see, I don't really know him.

All that I know about JC is probably just as much as any other fan does about him, which is mostly from reports in the media.

THAT he is a passionate and proud player when he puts on that rugby jersy - that we can all evidently see when he's on the field - you can't miss that with every blowover, hard made tackle or skillful evasive run from his adversaries towards the goal line.

THAT he was a 'wrecking ball' on the field - that is without contest and if you're a rugby fan - we all know that without having to read some blog about it.

THAT he was a 'cheeky All Black' known for spending a penny on the side of the grandstand just before a game in Christchurch 2006 - caught on camera - only Jerry got away with something like that. His friends and community in France say in reports that the mischievious JC has grown up with fatherhood.

THAT he was always down to earth with journalists and known for comments like 'what you see is what you get' attitude - that we know from reports once again.

THAT he asked to be released from his New Zealand rugby contract at the early age of 27 and went offshore to play his rugby - that confused me as a fan and a lot of rugby critics felt it was the wrong call - but he stood by his decision and had stated that it was the right time for him to bow out of NZ rugby and his All Blacks career.

THAT he was humble and had no pretentions about who he was - that I had had the priviledge to witness first hand.

I first met JC back in 2004 when he was at the height of his All Black career. My husband who had just come out of contracted rugby in New Zeland three years prior to that, had left some good imprints and made what would be some helpful associations for himself in later life. JC was in Samoa to visit his family in Leufisa a neigbouring village to Apia (where we lived) and they decided to get together for a night in the town. That's when I first met him.
I was somewhat anxious about the meet. I asked my husband "What do I wear to meet a famous All Black player?" Danny laughed this off, he obviously knew that JC wouldn't care less what one wore to meet him. But hey, don't tell that to a woman.
When we finally met him that night with another of Danny's cousin from Wellington, he was nothing I had imagined him to be.

I had imagined that he would probably be really sophisticated and prefer to dine at an exquisite restaurant and drink beer from a glass in a million dollar suit.
I had actually made the effort of buying an expensive new dress, had my hair done by a hair stylist friend, and brought out fancy jewellry for the occassion. I was not about to go and meet an All Black who knew my husband from his rugby days (where he no doubt had fair share of attention from the ladies) looking like your regular island chic! No way! I am a strong believer of 'first impressions' go a long way.

I was slightly disappointed. Jerry showed up in jandals, an All Black singlet and shorts! YES - SHORTS! His first words after we were introduced - "So where's the best pub in town man?" What he failed to impress in his choice of clothing he made up with his overwhelming presence and damn good humour. We had finger foods and a lot of vailima and a lot of carousing that night.

It was the first time I'd seen a man down a whole large Vailima bottle (Samoan beer) in one straight go! He was afterall in his mid twenties then and very much finely sculpted with lean muscle and strength! He outdrank my husband, and all the other guys who joined in on the drinking game that night - whilst I sat there in the midst of all these men - being boys!
It was quite the scene! What grabbed me was the fact that he did not have any idea of just what a big deal he was at that time, especially in tiny Apia. It did not resonate with him that he was a rugby star. He was just another guy, in a bar, having fun.

That week, we would see him on the streets of Apia, shorts and shirtless, going for his runs in the evenings. On some days he would be walking along the streets with his ie lavalava. He was photographed in the local daily paper at a local school sharing his rugby stories with the children. JC was very much just a man.

He had not only given rugby fans worldwide great rugby memories, he has contributed immensely to the Samoan KIWI DREAM! He is a product of a successful migration into NZ. A migration for a better future, better education, better health care, better lifestyle for our children and generations to come - with a lot of hard work and determination. Born in Samoa, he and his parents migrated into New Zealand at a young age, and he started his rugby in the heart of P Town - Porirua!

You can't get any more fresh than Porirua. But that's where it all began.
He was not just any other Samoan rugby player.

He was living proof that dreams do come true, if you work really hard, give it your 120%, and believe that you can achieve anything you put your mind to, and when you do, you live it down with humility and truth.

That is how so many young boys aspiring to be All Blacks throughout NZ and Samoa will remember him.

Yesterday, it was reported that rugby played at all levels throughout NZ commemorated JC and spent 10 minutes of silence in his honour. Rugby legends throughout the world,have all been sending tributes for JC and his family, including McCaw, Mealama and Umaga.

My sons have been devastated by this heart-breaking terrible news.
It has come as a shock for many young boys not just in NZ but also worldwide, his copper hair, boyish ways and humour has left imprints in the hearts of many young rugby fans.

Even though I met JC and spent one night in his company, I wouldn't say that I knew him. But the young life he lived in the last 34 years has most definitely been what he wanted it to be - 'what you see is what you get.'

We saw and felt great presence, an enormous personality, humility, pride of his country of birth and family, pride of his NZ upbringing and life. We saw a hardworking dedicated man, and lately we saw a man inlove, and a proud father.
That is the JC I know and we all know.

May his sudden passing ever remind us of what the Samoan KIWI DREAM is all about - and that well...life is too short to be anything or anyone else that we are not.

Our sincerest condolences to both families. know that you're not alone in your loss.

Rest in Peace, Love and Warmth Jerry Collins and Alana Madill - and continuous prayers for your dearest daughter Ayla.
Gone too soon - and will never be forgotten.