Who's afraid of Pinoy-baiting?

I guess we could be Asia's Italians, or that Italians are Europe's Filipinos, because many Filipinos also appreciate foreigners trying to learn our languages, customs and country.

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We go crazy when visitors try to say “Magandang umaga” o “mahal kita.” Italians also find it cute when non-Italians try their best to speak Italian.Now, multiply this by a thousand or a million in this age of social media and you get an explosion of videos of foreigners — foreign spouses or friends of Filipinos, permanent residents or tourists — flexing their love for all things Filipino. We now have perhaps hundreds of non-Filipino content creators focused on the Philippines and various things Filipino.

Quite expectedly, a vocal few are surprisingly offended and they accuse the foreigners and non-Filipinos of “Pinoy-baiting,” or a deliberate effort to gather social media clout from Filipinos. I don’t buy it. It could be simply a result of the Philippines being the world’s social media capital and Filipinos being on top of social media usage and mastery for more than a decade. Then, we also have at least 15 million Filipinos living or working abroad. Surely, they affect or influence people there.