Moshimoshi folks!

How has your May been? This month has been pretty tough on me, but we all learn to get by and do life as it comes our way. I bring you more serious scholarshipping and exciting updates from my bubble.

Also, after much nudging by my favourite @jilltxt, I have taken to Snapchat to share research ramblings on the go. See you on @wishcrys. Obviously, I’m still trying to work out my sticker-to-excitement ratio.

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New article published with the East Asian Journal of Popular Culture, available here.

Some behind-the-scenes snippets:

1) I wrote and submitted this in April 2014. It was published 24 months later in April 2016. This is apparently a good average for academia.

2) 2014-wishcrys was not yet conscious of OA politics, so this digital copy is courtesy of Joel. Thanks dude.

3) I’m a small-framed Asian woman who doesn’t power dress, and am often told “omg you’re so cute”. I usually can’t tell if it’s a compliment or microaggression. Long story short, angst can be rather productive so here is an analysis of how Influencers intentionally do cuteness.

4) Long live emoticons (^.^)

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New book review published with the Mobile Media & Communication journal, available here.

It features Jill Walker Rettberg‘s Seeing Ourselves Through Technology (2015), which is available via open access here.

Jill and I previously co-wrote the selfies syllabus with other fabulous scholars.

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The amazing Katie Warfield who runs the Visual Media Workshop (VMW) at Kwantlen Polytechnic University recently pulled a bunch of great scholars together for the Images of Social Justice lecture series.

Watch my lecture on a vigilante troll group based in Singapore, formerly known as SMRT Ltd (Feedback), here.

Katie and I previously co-edited a special issue on selfies with our dear friend Carolina Cambre. My genius mate, Stefanie Duguay, also has a lecture in the VMW series that dialogues with her article in the special issue.

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Connor Graham from Tembusu College recently invited me to join his research group under the Science, Technology and Society (STS) cluster at the Asia Research Institute (ARI).

Read about our project and the cluster here.

Connor and I previously co-taught the junior seminar Living and Dying in the Internet Age.

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Finally, the recent newsletter of the Australian Anthropological Society (AAS) features happy announcements that my thesis buddy, Kara Salter, and I have officially completed our PhDs. Read our abstracts (pp10-12) and the latest updates from the AAS here.

Kara and I literally shared most of our PhD milestones – we inhabited the same office and sat next to each other, shared a supervisor, submitted our theses on the same day, and were conferred in the same week. I am so glad we got to do life together, halved sorrows and doubled joys included.

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More procrastiprogress updates next month, when I’ll be off to present four papers in three cities.

Over and out,
wishcrys