Stomping Eye Balls

Memories in Singapore are short. Sometimes too short and there truly are not enough sites of remembering. A sorry situation that thankfully, the Singapore blogging community as a collective, is unconsciously addressing. Lost in physical space but given a place in cyberspace. That is one of the more important roles of the blogos. to help remember.

I have been been remiss in my blogging. And in my absence, a new cyber-presence was born. STOMP. Such a name of power. Multiple reverberations. stomp, stomp stomp. The Broadway, the dance, the musical. stomp. An old alternative band in Singapore, stomping ground. Alternative. Emo. INdustrial. angst. Beyond the mainstream. Edged and edgy. do not fuck with me.

But STOMP is not a new baby. It is a resurrection. A dead ghost given life. again. Its cyber traces gathered, packaged and resurrected. given life, granted mortality, yet again. Again. a ghost that forgot why it died, how it died. and hence, re-born with a blank slate. to make the same mistakes again?

Project EyeBall. Remember?

"Forget Project Eyeball and its brash exclamations about being the "voice" of the digital generation - if we wanted something nobody read, we'd buy a road map of the North Pole, thanks. And let's not get started on the dailies." -- Talking Cock

"If any site with any political content is considered 'political', then all newspaper sites are also political. And if sites like TalkingCock or Sintercom are regulated, so should the Straits Times, The New Paper, Project Eyeball and Young PAP." -- Talking Cock

"SINGAPORE'S dominant newspaper company hopes to coax many of the country's cyber-surfing free spirits back into the fold of its mainstream media with the launch August 12 of an online-and-print daily newspaper." -- AWSJ Aug 11 2000

She reckons that the government will allow Project Eyeball more freedom, largely because it will have a smaller readership consisting of well-educated, cosmopolitan readers ... Ms Henson's target readers are "tired of the Straits Times" and "tired of listening to the government," according to Project Eyeball's readership profile." -- AWSJ Aug 11 2000

Its the same record, a re-sampled song. If geek was in then, goth, ghet-o and emo is the tune to call now. The aim is the same still. Fearing a turning away of the young to those horrible and irresponsible political websites (so archaic a term now), Talking Cock, Sintercom, ST launches its salvo to stay with the flow, maintain its grasp on the pulse of the young. STOMP baby STOMP.

Project EyeBall. to be the 'voice' of the digital generation. Echoing Messiah. So the interactive paper tackles "tough" issues : sex change, gay rights, teen suicides. Under feisty Bertha Henson, it promised confrontational and in your face journalism. to resonate with the heart of young Singaporeans who are groing disillusioned, disenchanted and finding their space in cyberspace.

"I think sometimes the government simply has to hear from the people about what they think on issues. It's silly to ignore views. It could lose them the GE (general election)." -- Bertha Henson on why Project Eyeball in AWSJ.

So the wheel turns. The blind ghost has been hovering, it did not die off. In Jun 2006. STOMP is re-born. Front page ST no less. Glittering array of "stars". Lets tackle entrapment. Massage parlours. Parental bribery into "fave" schools. Tough issues, in your fucking face style again. STOMP in capitals.

What is the matter with the management of SPH? Time and again, these highly influential people continue to insult the intelligence of Singaporeans young and old. Singaporeans are not ghet-o hip hop gangstas or My Immortal goths. They may like the trends, they may follow the trends but when it comes to discussing Singapore, dressing up the issues in some kind of chill-funk lingo is more distracting and irritating to this group of Singaporeans they are losing rather than "connecting" with them.

Singaporeans are not dumb. Simple blogs like Mr Wang, like Molly Meek, like gayle, connect with young Singaporeans because they do not treat Singaporeans as idiots. They do not need to be Ali G and they not pretend to be. You can say the same for mb and miyagi. And most importantly, you can say the same for their readers. Its about keeping it simple and more importantly, calling the issues as they are. Content over style. And Singaporeans are smart enough to see that.

As with Project Eyeball, its the same story again. Probably the same thought processes. To solve the problem of the damned Internet. Just launch a portal, hip and cool, be the "vooice" of the digital generation. And the damned political blogs will be gone.

The traces are all there. In Google History. Relics of eyeballs littered in the wash of Singapore cyberspace history. Its important to remember. And then reflect on why History returns. These ghosts that keep coming back.

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Entrapment case. Let the community court have its first acid test. Let the accuser take the stand and explain under oath, swear to his heart, that he lodged the complaint against "char" not out of some selfish personal vendetta, a flamewar, but because he truly felt that what "char" put on his blog could destabilise Singapore and cause religious disharmony in Singapore between different classes of peoples.

Quote of the Day --

"so don´t tread on me
Liberty or death, what we so proudly hail

once you provoke her, rattling of her tail

never begins it, never, but once engaged...never surrenders, showing the fangs of rage
so don't tread on me
so be it threaten no more

to secure peace is to prepare for war

so be it settle the score

touch me again for the words that you'll hear evermore...
don't tread on me" -- Metallica

*yawn*