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| This is the most popular "meme" of man suing his wife for being ugly. Heidi Yeh is the Woman on the Left |
The "meme" has reached different blogging and social media networks including the Social Network Facebook, Twitter, and the ever famous 9Gag. Her popularity rose as the "Ugly" lady who undergo plastic surgery and married the man in the picture above. According to the circulating story, the man sued her after questioning her about the real father of the children, But she then told him that she went to plastic surgery. He sued her for being ugly.
The viral post post has different followup stories such as the comparison of her before and after photo for which the major medias popularized through out the following days.
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| Heidi Yeh's Sony advertisment in Taiwan - image courtesy of BBC youtube page |
Who is Heidi Yeh?
The woman in the plastic surgery meme is Heidi Yeh, a Taiwanese model, and has also become a model for a big firm like SONY. She is now again seen at the Spotlight after suing the plastic surgery company and the advertising firm for allegedly ruining her career.
"Taiwanese model Heidi Yeh, who has an impressive portfolio of work for various brands, as well as appearances in music videos, says she now rues the day she took up that job because it's given her 3 years of living hell." - http://shanghaiist.com/
Watch: Heidi Yeh's interview by BBC - Internet meme ruined my career' BBC News
According to Heidi Yeh on the BBC interview, she lost everything she had. Her image, boyfriend and even her personal life. Her boyfriend split up with her because of the embarrassing rumors that the meme story has provided her. And she is suffering everyday with humiliation as she learned to endure people gossiping about her in the street.
And all of it happened beyond her control. The world of internet has totally ruined her career so quickly like a wild fire, making people believe lies that will be forever engraved in her memory. We don't know what might happen to her career, her recent action of suing the company and advertising firm may become a stepping stone, or the death of her career.
The Cost of Viral Popularity
In this generation, once you get viral, you'll end up into two scenario:
- Rich and Famous
- Being Judged and Poor
In Heidi Yeh's scenario, people started judging her, even though they do know know anything about her. They easily believe a story in which has no definite fact. In this generation of information being spread so fast, it is important to start researching before believing anything the web has to say. But unfortunately, "Research" became a hard tasks, especially in this generation where useless and unreliable contents are easily found and can be manipulated by people's opinions. These misleading headlines and contents will lead you to these articles that doesn't really prove any significant fact, and in Heidi's case, most of the "opportunist" bloggers claimed they have the scoop of the real story, writing followups and making contents that are based on nothing but lies.
The major media picks it up without further research as they wanted the audience share. The perfect strategy to grab attention of the "vainglory" generation, is to ride with trend and sad to say that it's working... They are also the reason why everything in the web is turning viral, from the rise of "Sweet Brown" and to the latest you could imagine. If I have one thing to be impressed with the media, it's the fact that they knew the psychology of people wanting to know the scoop behind every viral post. Well, could you blame them? The world's news is their business, and they intend to gather as much as audience as they can have.
Heidi Yeh's Future
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| Heidi Yeh - Image courtesy of BBC |
The incident could be a good or bad for Heidi's future career. Her recent move of suing the company has helped her became viral once again. It's a great move for her since she has grabbed the attention of giant media like the BBC. She'll eventually have the chance to clean the "persona" the cosmetic company has made for her, plus, she can go and humiliate all those those opportunistic websites who made up stories and follow-ups that technically ruined her career.
She might have her career back since her value will be soaring high with the popularity she has gained with the said incident. Plus, she will attract large amount of sympathy from netizens, making them realize that they were wrong when they took part in ripping her career.
In two months to four months, she could make a major comeback, and making these companies want her back. Though, it depends on how the audience responds to her recent actions, and at this moment, all of those who shared wouldn't really share the "cure to the disease" post since it'll make them realize that they are wrong, but once more media picked the revelations up, expect her to retrieve her image and her status.
We despise bullies. We always say that bullying must stop, but we fail to realize that upon sharing something like that, we become the bully ourselves. If there's one thing that I learned in my down moment, it's the fact that "we should never judge a person" if we don't know the story of the person beforehand. The best way to avoid hurting other people is to think first before you share, or write something.
The proper approach is to research the story. If it's real, then try not to judge the person. Yes, people do bad things in life, the story could be a lesson for us to learn, but upon sharing that, we are not aware that there are these "collateral damages" that happens, especially with those people who are involved in the said matters. We hurt them, as much as we don't want to, if you were in her/his shoes, the story may be real or not, would you like other people judging you as well?
GREED IS GOOD, (But in reality, it's not)
The story went viral because of the GREEDINESS to ride with the viral trend, in order to get a market share of the popularity of the said meme. Netizens done a good job in Sharing the post, as the made-up story went into a millions of millions of smartphones and desktops. The Sensation doesn't stop there, the greedy websites and individual had their "research" on something "unreal," the more interesting thing that happened is the fact that they dug up research based on a "marketing" ad.
Reposting a viral story on the internet is like saying that you believe in flying cow. It's not real and yet we still believe it. People believe these stories because the story sounds so controversial or too good to be true. As a matter of fact, most of the intriguing stories rotating on the world of internet is "MOSTLY MADE UP."
To give you my stand on this matter, I'll be honest to tell you that I myself writes for a living, I worked both as a creative marketer, and a content writer for 3 years. After few months of being trained and being exposed to the job, and written so many made-up stories, I can proudly say that I know when the story is real, or just made up. All companies are making articles and tips not because they wanted to help you, but rather to help their site reach global.
Don't Believe in Everything you see
My parents usually consult the Facebook viral posts of "medicine alternatives" in which they always tell me to do this instead of doing the normal way. I always tell my parents to "not-believe-in-anything" being shared by the public, or should I say viral posts. At first, they hardly believe me, and they stand on the legitimacy of tons of articles written on the internet, But I told them to validate everything they see with professionals first before they start believing in anything internet has written. I explained to my parents that part of my work as a "Ghost" writer is to create viral topics such as this one.
Internet is full of lies and deceive. The only thing that real in the internet is the fact that all people wanted to have their names on the internet, and they would do anything just to get a share of fame. Modern viral writers scribble in order to grab an advertisement share.
BEING RESPONSIBLE
If you are one of those few who repost the said meme, then you should feel guilty right now on what happened to Heidi, because you've become a part in the incident. When I saw the "meme" post being reposted by my friends at the peek of the meme's popularity, I saw how hurtful the comments are, since I was looking at the comment box for the possible proof that the story is genuine. I didn't share the story, because upon reading it, I found plenty of holes, especially when it stated that it happened in Korea, wherein fact the woman looked Chinese.
These viral articles aren't helpful in most cases. There are helpful articles that can be found online, but it's hard to figure out what's real and what is not. Still, the best way to be educated is to consult to an expert. He may also have writings that is quite similar to the viral contents, but at least he/she has a title to show off his/her expertise.
If you wanted to be responsible, avoid condemning by sharing the viral post involving living individuals. Whether it's just an ordinary post in Social network, or just sharing it for a laugh, we should not ride the viral train. We don't know how powerful social network is, and do not underestimate the reach of a single "hashtag."
What's the point of condemning someone you don't know. Everything has its own story. One photo explains a million words about something we don't know. And yet, every has their reasons why they do good, funny, bad, or annoying things. The best thing we can do is to suppress our judgmental mind and shut our dirty mouth on something we don't know. I'm not saying that we should keep quiet in all aspects of whats' right and wrong, but the right thing to do is to avoid condemning something you don't know. There's a fine line between exposing, and being silent on such issue.
Why do Individuals Write Articles?
For several reasons:
1. Popularity - This is the "vainglory" generation. We all wanted to be seen, known, to be popular because we envy other people so much.
2. Business - Business tap into social media and viral marketing because its the easiest and the cheapest way to market their business.
3. SEO - Search Engine Optimization is a process by google that intends to rank websites according to the relevance to the user. Individual write articles with keyword enriched document to reach the "top page" of google whenever you search something.
For most people who don't understand what I mean, then I will explain further. Google search engine and Social Media Engines follows certain rules in order for them to figure out who to put first on search engines, or who to considered trending. SEO is the main subject when it comes to this matter. One important recipe in SEO is to post "articles" that would help the google search engine provide the information a certain user is looking for.
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