Hello guys, one of the things I like to do at the beginning of each year is to look back at which posts have been the most read in the last 12 months - this gives me a pretty good idea about what my readers like. Normally I would try to do this at the very begging of the year but I have had to rush several other posts out first. Of course, I realize that simply looking at the data in January has its limitations of course: this gives the posts from the first quarter of 2021 a massive advantage, whilst those other posts that I have made in the last quarter of 2021 have been out there for a much shorter period to accumulate a larger number of views. However, most of the readers flock to the post within a few days of it being posted.
1. Q&A: Is a geography degree totally useless? (posted December 2017: most read article for two years running)
2. Q&A: What is wrong with degrees from private universities? (posted December 2016 - 2nd place last year too)
When I talk about a hot topic, people keep coming back to the same articles years later because they are still searching for answers. Even though I often try to do follow up posts to talk about the same topic, the logarithm tends to direct the readers to these much older posts which have already been read by so many more people. I get it, further education, degrees and universities is and always has been a hot topic on my blog. I will try to write more about further education in 2022 as that would get me more readers, however the most popular post from 2021 in third place is a pleasant surprise!
3. Шоу-бізнес у Києві part 1: what were you doing in Kiev? (posted September 2021)
My regular readers will know that I starred in a Cambodian beer ad that was shot in Kiev, so I spent a few days in Kiev for this shoot - I thought it might have been a bit self-indulgent to be honest; who would want to read about my experiences about feeling like a movie star in Kiev? But actually, many people did and it became my most popular post from 2021. I suppose it was because I used the right tone for the post describing to my readers my fun experiences there without being too full of myself. After all, you might expect some stunningly beautiful 20-year old social media influencer to do this kind of thing but not a 45 year old bald middle aged man like me. I also talked a lot about Kiev, the casting process, the reasons why that ad was shot in Ukraine rather than Cambodia, I talked about the people I met - I talked about so many other things that were not about me per se and that made it a well crafted article. I guess the lesson here is that if you want to write about an interesting experience, talk about the experience per se rather than yourself. I'd also like to think that some of my readers were also genuinely interested in the fact that I had this fun and crazy experience last year, so they genuinely wanted to find out what I was doing in Kiev and I'm pleased that people are genuinely interested.
4. Brian Wong is censored: is cancel culture going too far? (posted October 2021)
Aah, this post was actually posted very late in the year in October 2021, yet it gathered enough views to finish the year in 4th place and was the second most popular post from 2021. 'Cancel culture' is one of the hot topics of the last 12 months and this was one case of when I thought it really went too far - celebrity writer David Walliams caved in under pressure to withdraw one of his children's stories which featured a Chinese protagonist Brian Wong with negative traits. As a British-Chinese person, I read the story and I wasn't offended - Brian Wong wasn't a likable character, he had many flaws but so what? Let's take a classic Hong Kong movie from the era before the woke generation: Dragon Inn (1992) and this was a movie set in ancient China, the cast were all Chinese and spoke Chinese (the film was shot in Cantonese and then dubbed in Mandarin for Mandarin viewers). It was a classic battle between good and evil, the villain in Dragon Inn was Cho Siu Hing (played by famous actor Donnie Yen). But oh no, the bad guy in the movie is Chinese, how do you think this would go down with the woke generation and their cancel culture? So is it only acceptable for Chinese writers and directors to create Chinese villains but the moment a white guy tries to do the same thing and creates a Chinese character with some negative traits, this gets canceled in this climate of cancel culture and deemed downright offensive?
5. So what is the working class mindset? (posted August 2021)
There is an element of 'write about a topic that you know well' and I think the working class are often misrepresented. I grew up in a very working class family and the problem is that very working class people like my parents are simply not articulate enough to express themselves and tell the world what it means to be working class. People who are well educated and eloquent often hesitate to talk about the working class because they don't want to be seen to be judging them too harshly or even come across as looking down on working class people. However, since I did grow up in an extremely working class environment and I happen to be educated and articulate enough to talk about this issue, I am in a unique position to try to talk about this topic - Indian sociologist Gayatri Spivak talked about how Indian women, particularly working class, lower caste Indian women never had their voices heard throughout Indian history as they were the subaltern and through academia, she was trying to give them that voice lest it be lost forever. If people like me become ashamed of my working class roots and shove it under the carpet, then I think that would be a shame as it should not be treated like some kind of taboo. This is why I think it is really important to have a conversation on the topic.
6. Logic, national service and a mystery box (posted April 2021)
Oh this has always been a bone of contention for me as a man who has served national service in Singapore. It is one thing talking to other male Singaporeans who have gone through national service but holy shit, do you know what it is like talking to Singaporean women about NS? To be fair, you get a range of responses: some Singaporean women are actually really knowledgeable when it comes to NS because they have spoken at length with men who have gone through that process and on the other extreme, you have women who have absolutely no clue whatsoever about NS and so they impose their own fantasies and ideas about what NS ought to be like (with no regard for what is actually happening at all). So as you can imagine, talking to the latter can be a painful process to say the lease because my stance is, "lady, you have no idea what the hell you're talking about, you don't even have the basic facts right - you're now talking to a man who has been through the process and you can simply humble yourself and say, okay you've been through NS, I haven't, can you tell me about NS please and I'll shut up and listen?" This piece was written after I had spoken to a Singaporean woman living in the UK, she has the opportunity to make sure her son never has to serve NS but she is basing her entire decision making process (this is her son's future we're talking about, it is not even her who has to serve NS, it is her son) on her ideas, her fantasies and her imagination rather than trying to get useful information from men who have gone through the process. Oh and the moment I try to give her some information, I'm accused of manspalining - but did this lady actually do NS? No and does she know anything about it? No, she doesn't. I rest my case. I can't reason with an idiot like that, so I had my rant here instead, as I know my readers are far more reasonable.
7. Understanding the surge in Covid-19 cases in Singapore (posted November 2021)
Aah finally, I was wondering when we were going to talk about Covid-19! This post is all the way down in 7th place but to be fair, it was posted very late in the year in November. I found this topic interesting as Singapore had shifted from a zero-Covid strategy to a living with Covid strategy by slowly reopening not just her economy but her borders as well and this led to the inevitable surge in cases with the Delta variant and now the Omicron variant. That surge in October and November 2021 ended by late December when case numbers fell dramatically, but in January 2022, case numbers are rising again and this was inevitable given that Omicron has found its way to Singapore already. London was hit by Omicron and our current Omicron wave started back in mid-December and that's when daily cases started rocketing, breaking all previous records to the point where the case numbers are utterly meaningless as it is virtually impossible to get hold of a Covid test in London now - the last three weeks have been worrying, but the only silver lining is that Omicron doesn't result in more serious illnesses. Whilst the number of patients admitted to hospitals have risen but the number of patients requiring ventilators and the number of deaths have not risen as much. Given how quickly Omicron spreads even amongst fully vaccinated people, Singapore can expect yet another surge of cases around early to mid February - just in time for Chinese New Year. Let's see the Singapore government try to cancel Chinese New Year 2022!
8. The politically incorrect Q&A about dealing with very rich people (posted September 2021)
There is an unusual story about how I came to write this article. I work in finance, I earn a good living but I do often deal with people who earn a lot more than me - these are the 'crazy rich' who have assets in the billions but they keep a fairly low profile. They don't talk about how rich they are and there's an air of mystery about people like that. I grew up in a very working class family but I had a crazy rich uncle - my father simply couldn't deal with the fact that his big brother had become so insanely wealthy and successful. After all, my father was a humble primary school teacher and whilst we weren't starving, let's just say you don't become rich by becoming a teacher. It was not like my uncle went out of his way to belittle or mock my father, they just never spoke much - they weren't close at all. My father would cook up all these stories about how my uncle's wealth was a curse; that it was horrible to be rich, all that money made my uncle a very sad man, that it was so much better to be poor and down to earth than to be cursed with money (yeah right, I can feel you rolling your eyes as you read this). If this sounds fucking ridiculous, well it is but that's the way my father coped with feeling like a pathetic failure and sad loser compared to his crazy rich big brother. So I grew up with all these ridiculous assumptions about what rich people were like and now that I'm dealing with people who are even richer than my uncle, I'm revisiting a lot of the things I was told as a child about rich people like my uncle and that's why I wrote this piece to try to reconcile things in my head. I can't ever speak to my severely autistic father about this issue; I am aware of how he feels like a pathetic loser compared to his brother and that's why it is so much easier for me to have this discussion here.
9. Friend zone, sugar daddies and seeking attention online (posted September 2021)
In case you haven't realized, I'm 45 today and I'm totally bald - yet I'm getting more attention both from younger men and women in a way I never did 20 or 30 years ago when I thought I was way too ugly for anyone to notice me. Is it because I'm substantially richer today than I was when I was younger, that it is merely the money that is making people attracted to me? Or is it the confidence that comes with being an older, successful man who has made it in the world of business? Thus I wrote about this experience - even just yesterday evening, this random woman just came up to me and chatted me up in the street. I was polite but formal with her, but that kind of thing never ever happened to me when I was younger. I even had my mask on so she couldn't even see my face properly, but it must have been that whole "he is an older businessman in an expensive suit, he must be rich" thing. It's bizarre and so it's a topic worth exploring on my blog.
10. On the death of Prince Philip and he public reaction (posted April 2021)
I love poking a hornet's nest and this was one such occasion. When Prince Philip died, sure there were some people were sad but if you read the coverage on the BBC you would think that the entire nation (including people like me) was in mourning when in fact, I was like, "he was really old, so what did you expect? Why are you surprised he died?" But of course, it's more about the indifference that people like me felt when someone famous like that passes away - it's more about the nature of one-way relationships. It is the kind of relationship where an ordinary person adores a celebrity - that could be a royal figure like Prince Philip, a famous singer like Taylor Swift, a sports star like Cristiano Ronaldo or even an activist like Greta Thunberg; no matter how obsessed you become with your idol and even if you do get to meet your idol for a brief moment, you're never going to become friends with them. Like even if you did get to meet Prince Philip once in your life, he's hardly ever going to become someone who cares about your well-being, he is never going to remember your birthday. No, that relationship is entirely one way yet because it is so one way, the expectations are very low and that's why many people like such relationships because the real relationships in their lives are probably so disappointing that a one way relationship with a celebrity is actually far more rewarding. Is it cruel of me to attack people who indulge in this kind of one way relationship with a royal figure like Prince Philip? Yeah, probably but it does beg the question: why would you invest so much emotions in a one way relationship with a public figure like Prince Philip? Don't you have real friends in your life, with whom you could have a two way relationship - which could be a far more rewarding experience?
So that's my top ten of 2021, the topics covered in the next ten posts (from position 11 to 20) ranged from racism/xenophobia to religion to social skills to foreign languages to the current job market but I see the same familiar themes that made it into the top ten: Covid-19, NS and class identity. There were also three posts about my personal experiences, so it's nice to know that my readers are indeed interested in what goes on in life! Oh and if I may explain that this is just me being a geek looking back at what I've written in 2021 and the statistics for my readership that year; you know me, I just write what I feel like writing about. Trying to write about a topic that I feel is topical and will get me hits would feel too much like an essay I have to write for school/university, but when it comes to writing about something I feel passionate about, oh I just sit down and type away for ages - the words just flow out of my fingers onto the keyboard effortlessly. That's it from me on this topic, what do you think? Which topics would you like me to write about in 2022 then? Which of these topics were the most interesting for you? Please leave a comment below, many thanks for reading.
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