Illustration by Nicholas Chang for RICE Media.
What does former minister S Iswaran have to do with American streaming superstar iShowSpeed (aka Speed)? Quite a bit, as it turns out.
Both controversial figures took up most of our headlines on September 24th: Iswaran for his much-anticipated criminal trial, and Speed for, well, simply being in Singapore.
People showed up in droves to see these newsmakers for themselves, surrounding them and aiming smartphone cameras at them—anything to get a shaky, grainy clip for a keepsake.
Those who were stuck at work or school—most of the action happened on a Tuesday, after all—followed along on live streams or live blogs with bated breath. I shudder to think of the crowd Speed, who has 33.2 million TikTok followers, might have attracted if he’d appeared in public on a weekend.
One minute, we were all trying to wrap our heads around Iswaran’s corruption charges being amended. The next, we were watching Speed pull up his shirt and give everyone at Kampong Gelam teh tarik stall Bhai Sarbat an eyeful of his bare nipple.
It was the equivalent of watching an insipid Channel 5 legal drama and scrolling through tawdry TikToks during the commercial breaks.
Now that the biggest events of the week are in the rearview mirror, though, we have to ask: Is anyone else cringing a little at how rabid we’ve all been acting?
Is Singapore that boring that these controversial men naturally became the biggest entertainment fodder for the week? What does it say about us when our thirst for spectacle and drama overshadows the real issues at hand?
The Suspense
Truthfully, I’m not above the drama. I’d considered going all the way down to the Supreme Court for a front-row seat to Iswaran’s trial. The only thing stopping me was the anticipation of a long queue.
I’m glad I didn’t show up. Tickets to the show were already handed out hours before it began, with one early bird who showed up at 5 AM just to secure a seat in the court’s public gallery.
When interviewed by local media, 24-year-old bank worker Darren Tan said he “wanted to see how this thing plays out”. You and me both, Darren.
It didn’t help that the media’s been capitalising on the Iswaran and Speed hype, pumping out multiple explainers and thinkpieces about the two.
Since Iswaran was arrested last July, the anticipation for the eventual court battle has only been building thanks to the little tidbits of information we’ve gleaned from the media. I’m talking about those pictures of Iswaran entering and leaving the Corrupt Practices Investigation Bureau and all those analytical pieces about Chief Prosecutor Tan Kiat Pheng and renowned litigator Davinder Singh crossing swords.
Iswaran himself played a part in the spectacle as well, declaring his innocence and vowing to clear his name.
And with Speed, we got blow-by-blow accounts of the chaos he caused across Southeast Asia, as well as Telegram group chats stalking his whereabouts before he even touched down here.
That’s probably why it was more than a little disappointing when the drawn-out legal drama we’d been expecting from Iswaran’s case wrapped in a day, and Speed’s first livestream on September 22 was cut off after just 30 minutes.
Speed’s impromptu tour guide, Jian Hao Tan, faced online vitriol (more drama!), which had him feeling “pretty defeated”. Never mind that there were valid reasons for things not playing out as expected.
The Attorney General’s Chambers (AGC) wouldn’t have amended Iswaran’s corruption charges if it wasn’t the best course of action. And because Iswaran pled guilty, there wasn’t a need to drain public resources in a long drawn-out court battle.
But, at the end of the day, we all wanted drama and action. And we didn’t get that. One media outlet called it a “tepid finale”. An internet commenter said it was an “unexpectedly lame ending”
To be sure, Iswaran’s case is an important one, involving things like accountability, justice, and propriety.
The public disappointment in the wake of the case’s conclusion almost mirrors that of Speed’s livestream audience—thousands of whom unsubscribed after he finally bungee jumped off Sentosa Skypark when he hit 32 million subs. Even Simu Liu’s cameo during Speed’s stream wasn’t enough to inject genuine excitement about his Singapore sojourn.
We wanted solid entertainment, but we didn’t get much of it.
Have We Lost the Plot?
The events of this past week are also reminiscent of the crowds that showed up for Devin Halbal, better known as the Kudasai girl, and the Ha sisters, also TikTok creators, when they came to town.
And on a less lighthearted note, I’m also reminded of the hecklers who harassed problematic content creator Kurt Tay outside court last year.
What drives us to seek out newsmakers, dedicating time and energy to lay our eyes on these people who don’t even know us?
Perhaps, for some, it’s simple. We rarely have this much happening in Singapore, so people naturally want to get in on the action. Rather than watching it unfold online, why not see it with your own eyes?
Maybe it’s also the fear of missing out. Iswaran’s case was supposed to be the “biggest corruption trial in decades”. And for fans of Speed, it’s a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to catch a bonafide global internet celebrity in the flesh.
There’s probably also some level of parasocial relationship that has us invested in the lives of these people who are technically strangers to us.
Take all the fawning and pandering to Speed from local fans and influencers alike. Fans begged him to give Singapore a second shot after his first livestream was a bust. Influencers fell over themselves to be part of his livestream. But is it really our loss if a 19-year-old who makes an impromptu trip with minimal planning decides he doesn’t vibe with our country?
My last theory is that it’s really not that serious. Would you rather spend a Tuesday afternoon slaving away in a cubicle, or keeping up with Speed’s wild antics in an alternate browser tab when your boss isn’t looking?
Reality is often dreary. Events like Iswaran’s trial and Speed’s wild tour around Singapore are basically dramas unfolding in real life. Now that the show’s over, I guess it’s back to the moo deng live stream while waiting for the train. Oh, wait.
