Hello friends!!

This morning, something pretty funny happened. I was casually checking the performance of this app that I created about a few days ago to realize that a few hundred people had liked it and everything, which was a little bit surprising along the way, but nothing really to shout at, because just because somebody likes your advertisement doesn’t mean that they’re actually going to buy it. 

But as I looked more deeply into things, I realized that there was something odd that was happening. 

Comments had started appearing over and over again, and somehow or another, all of them read the exact same thing.

Amen… Amen… It wasn’t just one amen. 

After the first amen, there was a second. After the second, there was a third.

A string of amens greeted me as I scrolled down the page, looking at all these people there who seemed to be throwing up their metaphorical hands in worship. 

And I can’t help but throw the ball back to you. 

Why? 

Here’s the original ad.

It’s a relatively simple ad that I’m using to advertise the fact that I’ll be starting up live class signups again.

I understand that it is a book, and I understand that the picture looks pretty, but there’s no indication here or anywhere else on the page that this is a cult.

I am not asking you to worship me.

I do not want your divine favor, your words of fateful reverence that will not ascend up to a sky, but instead into dead space. Because I am not your guru, your spiritual leader through a tumultuous world.

Just a simple academic guide.

I hope that this is nothing serious, and I think that this is probably nothing more than just a simple advertising experiment gone awry. Speaking about that, here’s my take on it – I think what happened was that Meta’s advertising algorithm sent out my budget to advertise to people who were being bid at a relatively low level.

Now I could do something weird like complain about how people who are of low income have greater desperation and will latch on to anything that they feel is meaningful, but I won’t do that. I would rather simply declare this as a small failure on my part to target the right people in this case, and will take it as a lesson for the future. 

Having said that though, there is a small hope on my part that whoever these people are, that they won’t look just to a picture of a book in order to determine the entirety of their meaning.

Either that, or that they will not just declare affirmations or amens to things that aren’t even in support of any particular cause. As a human being, I believe that there are many more meaningful things that a person can do in this world than pay homage to a picture of a holy book, for the story of life is long, it is complex, and there are many things that lie beyond an apparently captivating image on a phone screen.

Whatever the circumstance though, and even if it was the result of a haphazard and mistaken waste of a hundred ringgit in total, I hope that whoever was impacted by it will receive some sort of comfort, hope, and a desire to push forward to the future. Amidst the whirl of things unchangeable, to navigate beyond that which cannot be changed, and to recognize with the perspicacity and necessary wisdom that which can be, in the course of time, either directly or indirectly, through my path or something else. Whatever it is though, it was an interesting laugh. Not something I hope to be venerated for, but hopefully some good Saturday morning entertainment 🤭

Thank you for reading.

Ciao for now, and please remember, please don’t worship me.

You have better things to do… Like study English, for instance!!!

Speaking of which, did I mention? I’m opening up sign-ups for my IGCSE group classes, which take place on Tuesdays and Thursdays at 7:30pm at GMT +8. If you need help with the First Language English, please feel free to follow my Facebook page and drop a message here 🙂

Chat soon!

V.