//beconfused

It appears to me that my reading materials are boring to most of my platoon-mates. Most are not interested in what I bring, with the exception of 8 Days and Lime magazines.

The popular magazines that my platoon like are:

* FHM Singapore
* CHIP Singapore
* 8 Days (local entertainment and lifestyle magazine)
* Lime (teenage entertainment magazine)
* Men’s Health (eat more carrots, they say)
* Maxim Singapore
* Stuff Singapore (no nude girls posing with XBOX360)
* PC World Singapore
* First (for the movie buffs)

They don’t like the Newsweek, Discover and Forbes magazines that I bring. They always snatch my 8 Days though. Another guy brought Time regularly – wasn’t welcome. I brought The Economist once too, it wasn’t popular. Finally the Pioneer magazine which is the army magazine – well nobody bother bringing except me and I never take longer than 5 minutes possessing it before it goes the the trash bin.

So I questioned, “news aren’t nice to read eh?”

They want football (as in soccer, not American football) news. They want news about English football leagues. They talk about Manchester, Chelsea, Liverpool and Asernal. I don’t really know who’s better because everyone tells me a different thing.

So what about news as in the ongoings around the world? They cite The New Paper – a local daily tabloid. I like to read it once in a while but I think I skip too much of the paper that I might as well just go directly to the columns and entertainment sections.

The New Paper reports the touchy and touching stories of the Sigapore heartlands which both men and women enjoy (probably respectively). And often there’ll be some murder case, mostly in Malaysia.

I can’t really get myself interested in such news actually. I’m just not interested in other people’s lives, you know. Things like families not being able to pay electricity bills just ain’t particularly interesting. Yes, I pity them but I just am not interested in reading about other’s misadventures with finacial management.

And worse is that I always have this feeling of being sadistic when I purchase a copy of The New Paper to read about the misfortunes of people. It comes back to a simple question – why does one read? To enrich oneself and for pleasure. It’s like purchasing a paper to read about other’s misfortunes and the paper really does sell.

If it’s for enrichment and the understanding of the less fortunate among us, the whole idea is good generally. We read and find out that we’re fortunate. Doesn’t this kinda make you, er, happy? And knowing the unfortunate is there may make you feel sad – but do you try to help them in anyway after reading?

That’s why I don’t really like to read about people’s misfortunes. I know I wouldn’t really help them and I just feel bad engrossing myself in a two-page article of a girl being raped and murder, accompanied by huge headlines and full color murder scene illustrations.

Well, of course, this is just my opinion, you can rebutt if you want to. It’s kinda written in a rush so forgive my post’s structure.

Possibly related:

1. just//read
2. internet//news
3. Picture: Say no to plastic bags, waste paper instead

Tags: books, magazines, national service, news