THE LITTLE CONTEST THAT GREW

THE LITTLE CONTEST THAT GREW

As mentioned in a recent Soopsip column in The Nation, the Facebook page for my TV show for gays has been hosting a photo contest. We invited couples to send in a picture of themselves and see how many votes of approval they could get.

The idea was to get more visitors to the site hitting the "Like" button, but the contest became an indicator of something else.

From a few photos in early January, our little competition soon had close to 100 and was being hyped in the social media and then the mainstream media, with many outlets displaying pictures showing gay couples in love, even kissing. "A gay photo contest project rocks Thai social norms and cultures," one headline said.

But the frank photos caused alarm. Should such a private act be displayed online? Some gay couples were startled by the scale of the attention and asked that their photos be withdrawn.

"My partner has some problems with his parents," one contestant said on the phone, without going into details. Presumably his partner is still struggling in the closet. It happens.

Many gay people assume that their parents will never hear about what they do on the social media. Their folks don't even use computers, they reason, so they feel free to be themselves. And being yourself is never wrong, online or offline.

But unfortunately the unexpected publicity that the contest drew might have got that partner with the "parent problems" in trouble with his family. Maybe they even asked him to quit his relationship, and if the relationship was still young, they might even have parted by now. I'm not sure what really happened.

Meanwhile, the media hype also had the effect of drawing more contest entries, including some photos featuring intimate moments, and we didn't mind posting them. By the time the contest closed at the end of January, we had about 200 couples participating.

It seems there hasn't been a happy ending for everyone, but I think our little contest will make this Valentine's Day very different for a lot of people.

Vitaya Saeng-Aroon hosts "Pink Mango",

a variety show on Nation Broadcasting Corp's Mango TV, live every Saturday

at 10.30pm. Find out more at www.Pink Mango.tv.