WISHCRYS

March & April in Boras, Jönköping, Manchester.

Greetings, netizens of Böras, Jönköping, and Manchester! I’ll be heading […]

Heritage

Mr Lee Kuan Yew and the spectacle of death: The first twelve hours on social media

27Mar15 edit: My thoughts on the viral hate here. 24Mar15 0345hrs […]

Taking stock: 18 weeks to go.

So, as time has willed, I’m already at the halfway mark of my stint with the MMTC. This also means it’s eighteen weeks till the submission of my thesis. ermergerd. I […]

When you travel alone through foreign cities as a young woman,

I think I might have developed some muscle memory from […]

Moshimoshi, good people of Paris and Trondheim! Am passing through your city to talk about digital anthropology and smartphone anxiety, ‘cute’ Internet culture, and run a pedagogical workshop on selfie […]

I think kindness in academia is underrated.

I’ve just spent the last five weeks meeting an assortment of academics in Jönköping, Borås, Stockholm, and Göteborg at seminars, in meetings, at fika, and once on a public bus. As […]

Everyday ethnographies

Kids say the darndest things

Germaine: “Aunty Crystal, so when you graduate you are going to be a doctor?” Sheryl: “Can you cure people?” Megan: “Huh you’re going to be a doctor? Then you must […]

Job-hunting.

At present, my inbox is just email after email of rejection letters. Also known as rites of passage in academia and life.

It’s a blog eat blog world

This post was first published on Asian Creative Transformations, 6 February 2015 Drama and disorder in the Singaporean webscape I spent all of Christmas 2014 and New Year 2015 conducting […]

I don’t want to be an armchair anthropologist.

I keep meeting people who think any one can be/is […]

February in Stockholm.

Dear good people of Stockholm, I’ll be lurking around your city to give three talks on various aspects of Internet culture. See you there? PS: Thank you magical fairies, Rebekah, […]

累类的泪

厌焰验谚焰验谚厌验谚厌焰谚厌焰验悲杯背碑杯背碑悲背碑悲杯碑悲杯背心芯新辛芯新辛心新辛心芯辛心芯新晚婉挽惋婉挽惋晚挽惋晚婉惋晚婉挽

Week one.

I finally made it to Jönköping after a 31-hour commute over three flights and a bus ride, transiting from 37*C to -3*C. My coldest night here has been -8*C. My friends back […]

Heritage

Biracials speak out! The inside world of everyday chameleons.

This post was first published on PopAnth, 3 February 2015. […]

Academica Dramatica x Art

Crystal Abidin Dissecting a Review, 2014 Ink on paper 21cm x 29.7cm

Fatty the bunny: A story in 12 Tweets.

Instagramming Instagram’s Downtime

Instagram, Facebook, and Tindr experienced downtime around 1415hrs (GMT+8) on 28 January 2015. While the causes of the disruption are still being debated, the momentary disconnection (it was less than […]

Emoji epistemology.

Emoji diversity is old news. The Unicode Consortium proposed recommendations for the interoperability of emoji across platforms in late 2014. Customizable ethnically-diverse emoji representations are on the way. Inter-platform emoji […]

What’s on my mind?

What’s on my mind is how is today Saturday and why is there weekend inertia and why are all the contexts collapsing because life is very mysterious.

Heritage

Photologuing affect.

“I wasn’t actually in love, but I felt a sort of tender curiosity.” – F. Scott Fitzgerald

Auto-pilot grief.

This is unfiltered word vomit. I don’t know how this post is going to end, or what the function of this monologue is, apart from catharsis. I’ve got 59 songs […]

Fieldnotes: Social media microcelebrity and affective labour

I sit in a dessert cafe in the heart of […]

Fieldnotes: Body labour and selfies

“In the flesh, these microcelebrities seem to have mastered the practice of displaying their camera ready face – head slightly tilted to emphasize oneʼs chin and elongate the face; eyebrows slightly […]

#JeSuisAhmed speaks back to #JeSuisCharlie on Instagram

As a response to my earlier tracking of the #CharlieHedbo […]

Memetic Tropes on #CharlieHedbo on Instagram

I manually archive the artwork and memes published on the #CharlieHedbo hashtag on Instagram over three hours (8 January 15, 1700-2000hrs, GMT+8) and code the memetic tropes of populism. While […]

Red.

I have a project proposal! I have a project proposal! Now, to make all this scribbling sound smart on paper… Lying on my side and free-writing is surprisingly productive for […]

Academica Dramatica x To-do Lists

Academic pals, we have survived yet another year! This is your friendly neighbourhood reminder that to-do lists are forever. Hypothesis: To-do lists are abysses. Test: Have been slowly striking things […]

Commerce on Instagram

This is the third and final installment of a series on Instagram. Part one on The Great Instagram Purge and part two on Authenticity on Instagram now concludes with Commerce on […]