One night in June we find ourselves in the office noisily throwing titles around. We're starting a new section and we're rushing to find a name for it. Auspiciously, the PEP team is complete. Seated in undecorous fashion in a lane between two rows of desks, many of us are slumped in low chairs, heavy legs outstretched, our fatigue legit. At this hour our sister sites in Summit Media—immediate neighbors Top Gear, Preview, Yummy, and Cosmo—are happily gone for the day.
We can get loud. We can be normal.
Executive editor Karen asks, Why not POV? What is pov, I ask back. Point Of View, Madame. Ahh, but if anyone has to ask what an acronym stands for, it probably isn't the best for a title? Our top Tiktok creative Nikko, holding a dictionary, comes up with Reflections (too somber), Ruminations (almost pretentious), and Column of Thought (huh?). Somebody revives the title of an old section: PEP Forum. News editor Pink suggests PEPSpeaks. I counter with PEPSqueaks. Video boss Rommel upends that with PIPsqueak. Someone asks, Is there such a thing? Well, it's a play on pip-squeak which means smallish, amounting to nothing, I say. A collective groan.
Okay, let's start again, I say. What is it we really want to do here?
Someone says out loud: We want to write opinion pieces to win Summit's editorial writing contest! Burst of laughter. But it comes with a cash prize! Longer laughter. We're not knocking the cash prize, I say as the resident killjoy, but we're really more intent on getting PEP's voice out there. Polite silence. You know, spell out our reflections and ruminations and columns of thought. Scattered coughing.
Okay, all right, we want to write about what we've seen and heard but could not because our news stories just ask for our hard data. We want a space that's for any of us with an opinion. Are we talking about an Op-Ed section, Madame? Yes and no. Because here the opinion doesn't have to be solemn, doesn't have to moralize, doesn't even have to be smart—but it can, if it wants. Here, thoughts can be irreverent or serious, moralistic or lightweight, sharp or indulgent — not very standard stuff for Op-Eds.
In this space, we just want our audiences to get to know us.
Put another way, everyone's entitled to his view, and none of it needs to reflect the site's. We want to keep things personal and honest. If we can keep things short, even better. It's always good to reduce the chances of boring anyone, including ourselves.
Bernie, editor of our non-celeb stories, points to newbie FK: FK likes to do editorial commentary! That night FK had just completed her first assignment as shoot manager for the PEP.ph pictorial of Zeinab, the Influencer. So I say, FK, why not write "My First Pictorial" in four to five paragraphs! Everyone laughs as FK collects her things to make for the door. Then video guy Khym suggests the topic of performing in public as a gay guy, and so I go, Khym, write that in three paragraphs or more, as you wish! Which again sends everyone laughing as Khym's face turns pale, while a voice behind squeaks: Wag na kaya tayong mag-suggest?
Sometime in the night Khym comes up with OUTTAKES. Pink tacks on the word PEP to that, and voila, here we are: PEP OUTTAKES! These are our takeaways from the events, interviews, photo shoots, and press cons we're thrust into in our daily beat. These are our little observations, impressions, semi-conclusions about showbiz, this wild world we write about every day.
We dare do the PEP OUTTAKES Monday to Friday every single week. But why not Saturday and Sunday? Well, they say even the Creator rested one day at least! Us being way smaller fry, we need to rest more days than that. So we'll put out one PEP OUTTAKE every weekday, except for today, our first day for greeting you all, when we roll out three. We figure one of you out there could like at least one of our three, which will make this a win win!
But then again, we might decompress and simply release one PEP OUTTAKE three times a week, say M-W-F. But if so, we've already messed up our days! We released THIS OUTTAKE on a Tuesday, so when do we release the next ones?#!?? Oh, well, please bear with us while we try to be opinion writers!!!
This is, no kidding, us finding ourselves in a strange place and time. Most of the lot of us just aren't used to revealing our private thoughts and laying bare our personal biases. The whole thing leaves us feeling exposed. Before this, we could always hide behind the news—we present the hard facts and let readers decide for themselves. We don't let on how we feel. This right here is allowing people into our own personal space—a space where we show emotion, get righteous, get immodest, get philosophical, risk enemies.
Ironically, this makes PEP OUTTAKES our safe place.
That night I go home surrounded by good static. Everyone just pitching in titles with little worry about sounding dumb and then agreeing to open our own safe place to the public—how electric is that?
