In August of 2020, Cardi B and Megan Thee Stallion released a song that revolutionized the music industry for women entirely: WAP. The song, meant to be empowering and to allow girls to take control of their sexuality, faced enormous backlash from men and women alike. Many conservative men debased the song with their patriarchal…
I don’t know if this was the case for other Malaysian childhoods, but as I grew up in Penang Island, I vividly remember sitting in the backseat of my parents’ Proton Saga, looking with puppy eyes at the brightly lit plastic neon trees along Weld Quay and the Penang International Airport. Contrasted against the stationary…
There are many things that should not exist on our planet: socks-and-sandals combination, pants on the ground trend, people who refuse to wear masks amidst a pandemic… and billionaires. Earlier this month, it was announced that Mark Zuckerberg, father of Facebook and suspected alien lifeform, became the third centibillionaire in the world, after Jeff Bezos…
The cane or the hand. Those are the bitter promises that linger in the minds of most Asian children when it comes to punishment. In the majority of Asian countries, caning and whacking are common tools for parents to curb their child’s unfavorable behaviors. “The threat of punishment scares them from doing bad things,” is…
COVID-19, Black Lives Matter movement, Hong Kong Protest, Beirut Explosion, Australian Wildfires; to name only a few out of many, many events that have taken place this year alone. It is no secret that 2020 has been one massive roller coaster and it does not seem like the hills and drops are over just yet. …
In Malaysia’s most recent parliament session, the Minister of Housing and Local Government – Zuraida Kamaruddin discussed proposals to reintroduce local council elections. According to Zuraida, a feasibility study is being conducted by the government and would hopefully publish by mid-2021. This idea, however, was immediately shot down by fellow Perikatan Nasional MPs as they…
You know that feeling of gratification when you finally get the shot after countless attempts and a full gallery? It is that feeling of exhilaration that courses through your veins when you know this photo will look great on your Instagram feed and you’re just itching to share it with the world. After uploading that…
This year, the term ‘Karen’ became largely popular on social media platforms as an insult. The official definition is: Karen is a pejorative slang term for an obnoxious, angry, entitled, and often racist middle-aged white woman who uses her privilege to get her way or police other people’s behaviors. As featured in memes, Karen is…
As long as you own a smartphone and haven’t been living under Patrick’s rock for the past decade, you probably know about the internet phenomenon known as cancel culture. There are several definitions of this term floating around the net, but they all mean: A unanimous decision between a group of people to block a…
The #BlackLivesMatter protests which rocked the world this month are not the first of their kind. But this year, the movement’s intersection with Pride Month—a time typically associated with celebration of sexuality and gender identity—warrants special consideration. There are some within the LGBTQ+ community who have spoken vocally against the BLM protests or at least…
For the past four months, this is what our home has looked like: All across the world, our lives have been on halt for four long months. Checkpoints were set up, stores were temporarily closed, learning migrated online, and restrictions were implemented for everything, everywhere, and everyone. Once our situation has been labeled as a…
“Stop whining about your food! Kids in Africa would give anything to have even a bite of this,” I believe myriads of us have, at some point growing up, bore with stern lectures akin to this dished out by our parents, older siblings, or even caregivers to urge us to finish our meal, but how…