From BIG 3 to UGLIEST IN THE WORLD 3, from Cute to Nakakatakyut?: Naku, Suddenly we have some of the ugliest teen idols in the world...fortunately, the Original cute team, JADINE, is still cute in their new film "Never Not Love You" LOL

Kinda hilarious but true. After a brief interlude with some cute ones, we suddenly have the ugliest new teen idols in the world. Nothing we can do about  endemic Pinoy bumbling. At a time when newfound fans from many areas of the world have started to invade  Pinoy showbiz blogosphere, some ignoramus just had to put out repulsive scarecrows as teen idols.

Thankfully, as many readers here have  pointed out, the Koreans are still ugly like always despite repeated plastic surgery, so we finally achieved parity, double-hilarity in Asia LOL.(Though, we appear to be the more stupid because we are the ones who voluntarily downgrade while they fake everything to mask the reality of their faces, albeit to no avail).

 The flash that the cute Big 3 Pinoy teen loveteams (Jadine of James Reid & Nadine Lustre; Kathniel of Kathryn Bernardo & Daniel Padilla; Lizquen of Liza Soberano & Enrique Gil) unexpectedly created  internationally in the past two years has definitely peaked & is on the wane. The next wave is too unappealing to bother with. There goes likewise a big part of my interest in  Pinoy showbiz. I was never too keen with the domestic one anyway.  I was mostly interested on whatever ripples it generated abroad. Probably it was because of my love for languages & travel. I could make use of my capacity to zero in on local discourses in many areas of the globe. It was fun while it lasted.

But the Big 3 are maturing & the mostly unappealing next batches of Pinoy teen loveteams unsurprisingly rebuffed everybody right away so the bandwagon created earlier was just as soon scuttled. Typical Pinoy backwater story, there was simply too much ignorance & mediocrity. A brief sashay into international limelight indeed which for a moment enchanted the  ephebophile eyes who loved to swarm into this blog.

When I say "limelight", I don't mean about the "fake fame" generated by media companies which rely on contrived propaganda to create status for their products. I was more interested in what one of our readers who knew his languages  (so he could invade troll-free discourses anywhere in the world) as "spontaneous", the initial crest of recognition which were first detected in international blogosphere  before the propaganda troll swarms even took notice  (in fact, the local ones mostly discovered it from this blog). Definitely, not the troll-based  fake fandom which the South Koreans, the Western showbiz capitalists  & their local copycats pretend to excel at, or we won't have bothered to blog about them (we already know all the gimmicks, don't we?).

Among the original Big 3, the first to falter  domestically was Jadine but ironically, it is  still the one with the biggest footprint internationally. It should be remembered that Jadine was the first to attract the attention of captive fans of Asiatic film pirate sites  (which turned out to be South Korean propaganda sites) which led to the discovery of the other Pinoy teen loveteams (Kathniel & Lizquen) by international fans. While the last two grew in stature domestically,  Jadine sort of stumbled along the way. But outside the country, Jadine is still the leading Pinoy young loveteam whose films, mv's & teleserye (OTWOL) shine the brightest.

To be sure, we never produced loveteams as popular as the Big 3. The other successful one, Kristine Hermosa & Jericho Rosales, never came close in their geographical footprint. Neither did the Marian Rivera-Dingdong Dantes tandem.

Jadine has a new film . Though I'm still not content with whatever procedure has been done to improve Nadine's face in the past idle year (for instance, the nose, people! a friend described it so: James has a perfect nose profile so when they pose nose to nose, the premature slope of the tip of Nadine's nose becomes magnified, she has this look of "as if smelling something stinky". Well, take that as constructive investment into the country's top international young loveteam).

I love this song. It was a revival of a Sugarfree song, & I don't think that's an issue though it is in some of the past comments in this blog ( the usual orig vs. revival noise). As long as a song is beautiful, especially one which didn't really become a gigantic hit the first time, giving it second life might finally give it the total recognition it deserves.


Jadine- Prom

After conquering South America, HANGGANG MAKITA KANG MULI struts in Africa...meanwhile, Pinoy Network Wars go to Thailand?: DESTINY ROSE & PANGAKO SA YO

After making history in 2017 as the highest-rating Asian telenovela to be shown in Peru, the GMA teleserye Hanggang Makita Kang Muli will try its magic this year in Africa. It's now on weekend primetime on KTN, Kenya's top-rating free-to-air TV channel.

Last year, GMA new international releases surprisingly overwhelmed ABS-CBN as the latter only managed to sell a single 2017-produced teleserye for the whole year (Magpahanggang-Wakas). Early 2018 proved that the GMA upsurge  hasn't waned, new GMA teleseryes keep popping in various locations while its rival can't seem to sell its new releases in the international market: Poor Señorita in TV3, Malaysia's largest free-to-air TV, Vietnam had My BFF, Second Chances  in Africa & Ecuador, Destiny Rose in Thailand, etc. It's now February & like last year, Abs-Cbn is still mostly relying on its 2016 & earlier hits to be rerun in various locales (As a consolation, the 2015 Kathniel  teleserye, Pangako Sa Yo has a chance to shine in Thailand).

It's clear the GMA writers are propelling GMA to greater heights in the international arena: innovative plots, not only internationally acceptable Pinoy good looks & sleek production values, are now flying the flag for teleserye abroad. Meanwhile, ABS-CBN is still in GMA mode, still aping the fantaserye genre started by the latter as GMA upped the ante with stories not usually tackled by teleserye (amazingly, a future GMA teleseye is titled The Cure. Getting cutting edge in medical thrillers? )

Meanwhile, it's safe to say the sudden international prominence of the Big 3 young loveteams of ABS-CBN (Kathniel, Lizquen & Jadine) was a fluke. A tsamba which nobody knew how to handle. Yeah, it was probably serendipity that 3 cute Pinoy LT's were created at the same period that they were noticed in various geographical areas in the world, reaping adulations not normally accorded to previous Pinoy or any Asian loveteams. Proving that physically, the beautiful among the Filipinos will be more readily acceptable in more disparate geographical areas of the world than the usual Asian stereotypes.

 But a short look at the history of loveteam making in the Philippines would confirm that cute loveteams coming too far in between was the norm in Philippine, particularly ABS-CBN, loveteam making. The truth is, despite the overabundance of cute youth in Philippine streets, ordinary-looking teen idols were de rigueur in the last 30 years. It doesn't surprise me that my batch never bothered with the so-called Pinoy teen loveteams then (so did the world, obviously), most of my friends  looked far better than the stars and worse, I hate to admit it but I didn't know anybody who wasted his time with Pinoy showbiz. A few bad apples could really spoil the whole basket. The looks of certain Pinoy stars could rebuff a big part of the Philippine population. I remembered the time while channel-surfing when I felt revolted watching a reality show because I found the host "cross-eyed", only to find out years later  when I was already writing this blog that she was actually a big star in that channel. If not for this blog (thereby realizing Pinoy showbiz was bigger than her eyes), I would have lost respect on Pinoy showbiz forever.

Propaganda assumes that mass media can trick the people into  believing or adulating what it dictates. Not a fat chance here in the Philippines. People mostly ignore it when it's tacky. Like we did.

The good thing is that the Big 3 has really proven that unlike the stereotype Asian look, the Pinoy melting-pot look is more acceptable in more geographical areas of the world. And looks matter. This is classically typified by the greater acceptance of the Pinoy teleseryes over the kdramas in all the international areas where they were shown together like in South America (Peru), Southeast Asia( Indonesia), Africa, Central Asia (Kazakhstan), etc.

Perhaps in 2050 when the Philippines is predicted by HSBC to be the 16th richest country in the world, some Filipino strategists would decide to elevate the stature of Filipinos (much like how the South Koreans are doing now in promoting themselves out of the shadows of their giant neighbors, the Chinese & the Japanese). It should occur to them, however, that we don't have to mix delusion into the effort just like how the South Koreans have done it. The Koreans are not only aping the Japanese Jpop for its Kpop or the Chinese for their  F4, but in a ludicrous effort to gain anchor into the Spanish-speaking world, their propagandists went hilariously overboard & had the weird temerity to hilariously tag themselves as "Latinos of Asia", a tag given to the Filipinos by the Latinos themselves. To extremely hilarious results, as expected. As we have documented in the blog,  they were perennially clinging for years at the very bottom of the Peruvian rating charts while their propaganda was hilariously proclaiming they were popular. Nobody was fooled. More like nauseated.

No need to go the South Korean comedy route, Pinoys now know we can count on our looks. Perhaps by 2050, we'll have learned how to handle internationally other Big 3's. After all, we have the supply.


Destiny Rose- OST (Thai) & Trailer

Pangako Sa Yo- OST (Thai) & Trailer

HAPPY 2018...Meanwhile, Teejay Marquez appears as one of the Indonesian F4 on Indonesia's Top-Rating TV Show: SIAPA TAKUT JATUH CINTA Reborn (STJC Reborn)

It's a new year. It's safe to say the mini-wave created by the first Big 3 Pinoy love teams to be recognized by young international fans has peaked in the middle of 2017 & has been downhill ever since. This is not to say that Kathniel, Lizquen & Jadine have been forgotten but the novelty has obviously faded. It was just unfortunate that the infrastructure & the vision to sustain the unexpected "miracle"were not there. While the Bollywood stars traipsed for "meet & greets" from Saigon to Jakarta as Bollywood telenovelas dominated the ratings in Indonesia & the rest of the big Southeast Asian markets,  "nangangapa" Pinoy-style wins as usual.  Everybody seemed to be dumbfounded by what happened-  how in the world were the Pinoy LT's  noticed!-  they didn't know how to react, or even to milk the situation, much less how to prolong the moment.

They trashed the home instead. Looking at the new teen loveteams on the wings, I don't know if they're trying to make a joke. Probably, it was safer to repulse everybody else so they won't face a situation where they are caught unable to react again. It's safer to repulse the fans (who cares about internationally-popular Pinoy LT's anyway?) than to be proved stupid.

 Certainly, I was repulsed. The lack of posts in the blog clearly shows my fading interest. During the holiday get-togethers, I checked the level of interest among the younger ones & everybody was clueless about local showbiz. Checking on the brood of the helps elicited more interests on DOTA & everything else except showbiz. Well, it's obvious scraping the barrel has become vogue.

But the blog will continue. If I'm not too keen on the local scene, we'll still document their adventures outside, at least we hope international taste would have filtered out  the repulsive ones by then...but we have some surprises, we're linguists after all so we can easily seek satisfaction elsewhere. Just wait.

Meanwhile, deserving Pinoy stars can seek their star somewhere else on their own. It appears Teejay Marquez has really hit big-time in Indonesia. At a time when the original F4 is being remade in China, Indonesia is doing its own version in SCTV's current hit Siapa Takut Jatuh Cinta Reborn.  Pinoy actor Teejay Marquez appears as one of the 4 main characters together with the top Indonesian young hearthrobs Aliando Syarief, Verrel Bramastha & Bryan Domani (though in a sudden development, Syarief, currently the top Indonesian young star, backed out because he felt his character was turning out to be not the main star).

This is currently the top-rating show in Indonesia, vaulting its station SCTV into the top station with the biggest audience share among the 15 Indonesian TV stations.