Journalism
Below is a selection of my longform journalism.
While working for The Straits Times, I liked to say that I cover the “oddball beat”, because my writing is often difficult to categorise or define, all while spanning a genuinely dizzying range of subjects. While working at ST, I have been the paper's nightlife reporter, resident ADHD expert, incel whisperer, and more.
I am available for freelance reporting on technology and culture issues relating to Singapore.
Examining everyday breakdowns and malfunction: While technology reporting is often fixated on innovation or high-profile collapse, my writing focuses on the oft-neglected and mundane everyday practices that emerge around breakdowns and dysfunction.
- ‘Not allowed to use the home Wi-Fi’: How domestic workers get online in Singapore
- Inside OGP, the little-known tech unit behind RedeemSG, Parking.sg and ScamShield
- Reddit wars: What’s driving Singapore’s largest online communities
- Confessions of a S’pore Grab driver: How the app is changing as it enters its profitability era
- Decades of image-based sexual abuse: How perpetrators evade tech platforms and the authorities
- ‘Revenge porn’ victims speak out: ‘Will he take pictures of me when I’m not looking?’
- When a mall grows old
- Sky-high demolitions: What is behind Singapore’s many skyscraper tear-downs
Understanding fringe subcultures: My explorations of fringe subcultures seek out members of hard-to-reach communities to understand subcultural worldviews in these communities' own words.
- Domestic workers helped raise our children. Who helps them care for our parents?
- The crypto bros are back: ‘The hubris never really left’
- Involuntarily celibate: Inside the minds of ‘incels’ who blame women and society
- A furry cure for loneliness: ‘It’s like socialising on easy mode’
- No sex, no problem? What it means to be asexual in Singapore
- TikTok is paying S’pore Gen X ‘aunties’ to use app: ‘I’m at the stage where I thought I’d just try’
Exploring the nature of narratives: One of my enduring fixations is unpacking the significance of the stories and histories we share, and imagining new ways to express them through experimental second-person journalism.
The story of you: What might Singapore look like for those born today?
- This is how you're going to die?
- Singapore without Singaporeans: What the island nation looks like on screen
- ‘Do you kill children?’: Even before independence, S’pore has always loved its over-the-top campaigns