henri

[LONG RANT] This is something I wish more new viewers, and even returning viewers, would understand about PBB today. The Pinoy Big Brother we are watching in the modern era is no longer quite the same as the PBB we grew up with. And I think this is especially important to understand when watching the housemates of Collab 3. There are two major changes that I believe have made the experience of living inside the House considerably more psychologically and emotionally demanding than before. (1) The world has become more digitally connected, making isolation inside the House much more difficult. Think about it. During the earlier seasons of PBB, particularly before smartphones became an essential part of everyday life, people were already accustomed to spending long periods without looking at a screen. Yes, being separated from family and friends was difficult even then. But the adjustment to a life without phones, television, or constant updates was arguably less drastic. Now, think about how we live today. Our phones are practically extensions of our lives. We use them to communicate with friends, entertain ourselves, order food, read the news, and sometimes simply escape from an uncomfortable situation. Kapag malungkot ka, you can message a friend. Kapag bored ka, you can scroll through TikTok. Kapag may nakaaway ka, you can distract yourself with something else. Now imagine having all of that taken away from you overnight. Suddenly, the people inside the House become your entire world. Sila ang kausap mo. Sila ang entertainment mo. Sila ang emotional support mo. Sila ang nagpapaalala sa'yo na may mundo pa sa labas. And as Winwyn would put it, sila na ang mundo mo. This is why I think we should be more understanding of how intensely housemates experience their relationships. A disagreement that might seem trivial to us watching from the outside can feel much heavier when you're living with the same people 24 hours a day. Kapag may nakaaway ka sa totoong buhay, you can go home, talk to someone else, or simply take some distance. But inside the House, where do you go? You still have to eat with them. Sleep near them. Complete tasks with them. Wake up the next morning knowing that the same unresolved tension might still be there. And perhaps the most difficult part is feeling excluded. Imagine being surrounded by people every single day, yet somehow feeling completely alone. Wala kang ibang matatakbuhan. Wala kang ibang makakausap. You cannot simply call your best friend or go somewhere else to clear your mind. That is why I think we should be careful when dismissing housemates as overly emotional, clingy, sensitive, or dramatic. What looks like an overreaction to us might be somebody's very real attempt to cope with an environment where their usual emotional support systems no longer exist. (2) The New House is physically more isolated from the outside world. This is another change that I think people tend to overlook. The Old PBB House was situated at street level. Although the housemates were still confined, they were living in an environment where the ordinary sounds of the outside world could occasionally remind them that life continued beyond those walls. The sound of passing vehicles. The occasional noise from the street. The familiar background sounds of a neighbourhood. These might seem insignificant, but psychologically, even the smallest reminders of ordinary life can provide a sense of normalcy. Now, consider the New House, located on the sixth floor. The housemates are physically removed from much of that everyday street-level environment. Instead of the familiar sounds of a neighbourhood, their surroundings are dominated by the controlled environment of a studio building. And I think there's something particularly unsettling about that. Imagine living somewhere where almost everything you see, hear, and experience is contained within the world of Big Brother. Even the idea of stepping outside feels different. Sa Old House, there was at least the immediate physical presence of the street beyond the property. Sa New House, even beyond the residential space, you're still surrounded by the infrastructure and walls of a much larger building. There's an additional layer of separation between you and the outside world. Of course, both houses are designed to isolate their occupants. But the experience of that isolation may be very different. And when you combine that physical separation with our modern dependence on digital connectivity, you begin to understand why the emotional environment inside the House can feel particularly intense. ---- This is why I genuinely wish viewers would extend a little more empathy towards the housemates. We are watching them from the comfort of our homes, with our phones beside us, our friends one message away, and the freedom to walk out whenever we feel overwhelmed. They don't have those same privileges. We can turn off the livestream when things become uncomfortable. They cannot turn off the reality they are living in. We can move on from an argument we watched for five minutes. They may have to live with its consequences for the next five weeks. And while accountability still matters, and housemates should absolutely be responsible for how they treat one another, I think understanding their environment should come before rushing to judge their reactions. Because at the end of the day, PBB is not simply about putting people together in a house and watching what happens. It is about observing human beings trying to form relationships, manage conflict, find belonging, and preserve some sense of themselves in an environment where almost everything familiar has been taken away. To us, it's entertainment. To them, it's their everyday reality of a pressure cooker.