This is the person who I've nominated for Singaporean of the Year, an award my newspaper gives out annually:

The end justifies the means. But what if there never is an end? All we have is means.

As the unique financial risks of Buy Now Pay Later (BNPL) become apparent, we're seeing tightening regulations from governments across the globe. And yet, BNPL is making a comeback in Singapore, increasingly embraced by the platforms that define commerce here. Here's why:

If you've ever wondered how pig-butchering or love scams begin, here's how. Made all the more timely by that recent Reuters report published yesterday on how Meta's internal research estimated that its platforms were involved in a third of all successful scams in the US.

In 2006, Mr Pillai paid just $3 for his late-night journey home to Yishun from the city centre. Back then, the NightRider buses operated from 11.30pm to 4.30am, covering that stretch of the early hours when the MRT lines cease to run (...)

Shock therapy: why scary movies keep evolving – and making money

How Ruby went off the rails: A deep dive into the ownership and governance drama of some of the most important open source projects in the world www.404media.co/how-ruby-wen...

The real generational divide is people who refuse to watch a video if it could be an article versus people who refuse to read an article if it could be a video

"What happens when a mall grows old? According to tenants at one of Singapore’s longest-operating malls, it exists in a sort of commercial purgatory. Not quite dead or alive, but still necessary."

Drama in the cake world! As someone who's long followed the cake picnic trend over TikTok (and the many successful and not so successful iterations around the world), I was surprised by the furore sparked by Singapore's own cake picnic:

Okay but this is high art @phaun.bsky.social

Do Singapore's Gen Zs still know how to party? After speaking to dozens of Singapore's youngest generation of partygoers (and party sceptics), I came away with a strong impression that more needs to be done to ease the barriers faced by organisers and businesses for making a good time possible.

Just got my hands on the latest issue of meantime magazine and I am in awe of the design

"Friendships require infrastructure, and that infrastructure costs money. Creating free and accessible third spaces such as this, where young people can simply be, was money well spent."

"Feels like the end of an era." Yesterday, fans said goodbye to the Projector one last time during a farewell party held at the beloved independent cinema. Reporting on this story, I saw many teary eyes, toasts to the end of independent cinema and hopeful pondering about what comes next.

Find it fascinating how filmmakers see Asian cities as a visual shorthand for vaguely dystopian sci-fi futuristic modernity

chatgpt words

love this new york times clip. they recently did a story about how sesame street's set has changed over the years, along with our urban politics. IG nytimes

Discovered today that not everyone considers this nine year old viral tweet a seminal text in the field of social media studies but I do

Who's winning the game of tones in Singapore? Check out my latest story about the colour elections that happen almost every day here:

Support local! Singapore's indie game developers are serving up a really impressive selection of video games this year, and this is one in particular I'm happy to recommend:

The increasingly bleak and dystopian shape of the economy inspired me to write this article:

In today's edition of the straits times, I write about what it's like to be diagnosed with ADHD later in life - and why it made me so so angry at our schools and attitudes towards mental health: www.straitstimes.com/life/hear-me...

If you're at all interested in buying or renovating a home in Singapore, chances are you've come across Stacked Homes. How did it become one of the island's leading sources of property advice and home inspiration? I spoke to the founders behind it to find out: www.straitstimes.com/life/home-de...

Who made this BL edit for the PAP??! Identify yourself!

Singapore has a world-class education system. So why are we spending so much on tuition and out-of-school help? Find out more in my story taking a behind-the-scenes look into the lives and work of Singapore's tutors here:

Meet the furries of Singapore: “To me, it means a community of people who are free to express themselves without judgment,” says a member of Singapore Furries. “The cartoon animals are just a way of expressing what’s inside.”

How does one even begin to explain Singapore's nomination day shenanigans to someone living in a democracy where submitting your nomination papers is a largely administrative exercise barely worthy of news coverage...

More questions asked, more ministerial statements: Inside S’pore Parliament’s record-setting 14th term: www.straitstimes.com/singapore/po...

Why do Singapore millennial homes look like that?

I have finally done it. It has taken three years to pull this together. This is my grand unified theory of why the MAGA beat (and everything in politics and possibly the world) has turned into a batshit hot mess. I present to you: The Infinite Fringe. www.theverge.com/cs/features/...

Parliament has been dissolved! It's election season in Singapore!

🗞️Relevant Article: #StraitsTimes by @kaixiang.info on #ImageBasedSexualAbuse and #RevengePorn in SG. CASMIDA's @michellehsho.bsky.social comments on the root causes of #IBSA, how it impacts survivors, and digital-natives' interaction with related materials. www.straitstimes.com/singapore/be...

Cited in this important @straitstimes.bsky.social article on #ImageBasedSexualAbuse #IBSA and #RevengePorn in #Singapore by @kaixiang.info Full article here: www.straitstimes.com/singapore/be... For more on these issues, connect with the team at @casmidaproject.bsky.social

Because of the popularity of Netflix's Adolescence in Singapore, many are wondering what the manosphere even is and how to recognise it. To help readers understand, I put together this glossary of manosphere and incel terminology for The Straits Times: www.straitstimes.com/life/red-pil...

How did mobile data become dirt cheap in Singapore? The short answer: Xiaomi, a new telco, and our changing relationship with our phones. My biggest tech story yet for The Straits Times delves into the history of Singapore's mobile data price war, read it here:

My question to Meta is, why bother to roll out the cannons to blast this tome? The effort to neutralize the book seems quaint and futile. For one thing, NDAs do not cancel out the first amendment, @stevenlevy.bsky.social writes. On Meta's effort to bury the book, "Careless People."

Why yes, I did write an article about how some feel that Singapore is so lacking in weekend activities that an unfinished tech park has become our newest attraction:

The latest article I wrote (about incels in Singapore) is also the one that has triggered the most hate mail and online harassment in my entire career in journalism so far! If you're curious about what in the article could be making folks so mad, read the full story here:

Call it the “Jennie effect”: After the Blackpink member posted pictures in a gray mini-skirt, mobs of fans tracked it down to a small Vietnamese fashion brand and nearly crashed its website with their orders restofworld.org/2024/vietnam...

What's stopping Singaporeans from saying "I love you"? According to the experts I spoke to, everything from our intense work-life balance to our authoritarian parenting styles. Here's why we should change that:

I spoke to a bunch of devs about the recent "slop" epidemic on the Nintendo eshop and PS Store - why and how it's happening, what platform holders could do about it, and why tighter restrictions could be bad for indies: www.ign.com/articles/i-c...

Will there ever be a better explanation of what the Public Domain is than this? I don't think so. scp-wiki.wikidot.com/pdcontest2025

I just published my first ever piece of travel journalism, and what better place for it to be about than Sri Lanka, probably my favourite country I visited in 2024! Read about the island's dramatic ascent as the next big tourism destination here: www.straitstimes.com/life/travel/...

In other news, elon/twitter's war on bots is going really well...

What is the form of neurodiversity that explains why a family member of mine feels the need to rearrange and redecorate the home on a weekly basis. Is that a thing?

Good morning from Bangkok, where today Marriage Equality has become a reality in Thailand. The first couples have registered their unions, like here at a pop-up at Siam Paragon Mall. #LGBTQ #สมรมเท่าเทียม

Another LGBTQ establishment bites the dust in Singapore: www.straitstimes.com/life/two-gay... One former patron says he was “saddened but not surprised” by the closures, noting that spaces for Singapore’s LGBTQ community are often fleeting.

So I broke my twitter/x hiatus to put out this call for interviewees, and the results were... unsurprising.