Man Up
[Applause]
so i know everyone’s been talking about
really deep
meaningful stuff so let’s talk about
something very shallow
me hi
[Laughter]
hi i just thought i’d introduce myself
see so like
um i’m the head of strategy at the
communications agency
uh i’m a published author i’m a skater
i’m a swimmer i’m a cyclist
i’m a skier i’m a wake boarder i’m also
a serial party boy but don’t tell
everyone
i live in a pretty nice house it’s been
featured in magazines all over the world
i drive a pretty nice car i’m a pretty
good home chef
and i’m an occasional advertising model
so my big question after that incredibly
wanky introduction
am i a man well thank you for that
resounding
nothing but usually people would say yes
thank you very much
now let me tell you something else i
collect barbie dolls
like lots of barbie dolls like 12 000
barbie dolls i’ve got 12 000 barbie
dolls in my
little singaporean house
in fact it’s the largest collection in
asia it’s in the asia book of records
so now my next question then is am i
still a man
thank you so there’s no point to this
anymore okay bye
now i just got to talk to you a little
bit about barbie barbie tells
us that you can be anything and that’s
been her tagline for a while
she herself has had like 200 careers and
she’s been around since like 1959
uh and when i was a kid uh i’m sorry
i’m sorry but when i was a kid i wanted
to be a fireman
um not so much a fireman but all the
traits that were associated with fire
manism which is like courageous and
brave and
strong and handsome and then i started
playing with dolls
and you know even even as a five six
year old i did ask myself what kind of
men
would i then grow up to be
so i’m going to tell you a bit more
about my story
my brush with media started at a pretty
young age
at the age of 17 i was a teen journalist
and that was when my collection of 250
dollars by the way
went public and everyone was like oh
okay so he collects dolls oh my god
um and now when you google my name uh
with with the word barbie as a suffix or
prefix you actually get
things like this like it’s it’s an
insane amount of media coverage
globally i believe there are about 300
000 hits
so um and happens like i’ve been i’ve
been i’ve been compared to
smithers which is fun um
um but you know with with internet fame
as crystal belt probably tell you
comes things like this and imagine this
right you
you just like one day wake up and
there’s some media coverage about you
and the next day on yahoo you’re being
called a
you’re being called a homo you’re being
called a crazy rich asian and that’s
used as an insult by the way
um single yeah i wish
it’s it became so talkable that
that even even a magazine in singapore
published this and said the straits
times finally posted about the
singaporean guy who collects barbies
and all the sexist homophobes have
crawled out of their holes
which which is awful i mean like you
don’t you don’t think about these things
because to me it’s a private collection
it’s just
stuff i do in my free time and it
suddenly opened up a floodgate of
of i guess opinions opinions which
may not necessarily be in your favor so
that really got me thinking about the
not so wonderful world of internet fame
uh i myself am a relatively confident
guy
but sometimes i think about my own loved
ones
these are my parents lovely lovely
parents bless them
they they’ve never said anything
disparaging about my collection they’ve
always supported my collection
and then one day right because i’m in
this ad campaign so like
right now if you take the mrt you will
see me on the on the on the train
platform screen doors and whatnot uh and
and my parents were in church one day
and um someone someone asked them is
that your son uh the doll guy
on the ads and they’re like yeah yeah
that’s my son and and this person was
like
and you’re okay with it and i was like
wait what and i could actually see that
flicker of shame
in my parents eyes parents who never
thought that this was a weird thing
and there was this flicker of shame they
pick themselves up um
but you you you feel it and suddenly you
worry
and you start thinking about the larger
implications of my own
stupid collection i used to defend
myself because you know when you go to
school and they’re bullies or that kind
of stuff you
you defend yourself it’s like this is my
decision i am still a man
but now i understand that my
responsibility is so much bigger
can you imagine right that first of all
i have to defend my choices but i’ve
also got to defend my upbringing my
parents my grandparents my
family i have to defend my partner who
has to live in a ridiculous house
full of dolls with me i have to defend
my friends because my best friend has to
be permanently associated with this guy
that collects dolls
and brings dolls out in public and
photographs them um
it is rather embarrassing i must admit i
have to defend my loved ones
so to me right that that suddenly became
a thing where i have to think about
me being the cause of someone’s shame to
becoming their protector
so i think that that was a lesson in
manhood for me
where where barbie made me into a
protector whether i liked it or not
um i started instagramming as one does
and i’ve got a healthy ish following and
through
instagram i i met some amazing
um but i think it also managed to help
me
or help other people reach out to me so
i’ve i’ve been helping make a wish
globally for for years and using barbie
to spread the message of happiness and
hope
so i’ve sent like 13 dolls to to brazil
to because this girl had a had a wish um
to have dolls from all over the world
um closer to home this is vivian vivian
has muscular dystrophy
and her whole body does not move but she
loves she loves barbies so
uh what i do with my instagram page is
that i go to a house and i dress dolls
for her and then we do like little
fashion shows and we
put them on my instagram and she feels
like people are watching
which is which is great um yeah so this
is this is vivian’s
not so humble collection it’s got pretty
decent collection actually
i live up a long flight of staircase
and she and she wanted to see a my house
uh which has twelve thousand dollars in
it
so we we physically had to carry her
into the house
um but you know that that moment where
where her eyes lit up to see something
that she never thought she would see
that was magical for me and i i’m not
someone that cries
uh but it did bring a tear to my eye so
lesson number two i guess from from
barbieism
is that is that i actually went from
being very passive to
being a bit more compassionate i don’t
want to say i’m really compassionate but
i’ve gone to becoming a little bit more
compassionate and understanding of the
world
last point promise i’m going to talk
about sri lanka now i used to travel a
lot pre-covet for
for business and for for leisure and
i was once on an agency transformation
trip in sri lanka where i had to go in
and do coaching for like two weeks
and i was stuck in this hotel and it’s
and at 7 pm there was nothing else no
bars no clubs
and i would eat my cheeseburger and go
to sleep uh i usually have a travel doll
with me
and i used hotel toilet paper
to make a dress for my travel doll
and it kind of looked like this
[Laughter]
[Applause]
and then i instagrammed it and my my
followers my fans were like oh my god
this is so cool and i’m like you know
what i’m stuck here for 14 days i’m
gonna be doing this every night for the
next 14 days just to amuse my audience
and from there right i started making
things like this
out of hotel toilet paper toilet paper’s
like 75 cents i refused to pay for this
so and as you can see the designs became
a lot more elaborate and inspired by sri
lanka inspired by the weddings i saw in
the lobby of mount lavigne hotel
and bandaged dresses that kind of stuff
i even used
the cup cover in the hotel room to make
a hat
that legit is how bored i was uh
and and little did i know that in the 14
days when when i was away
um a singaporean magazine nylon covered
covered it and
and talked about how i made doll dresses
out of toilet paper
and before you know it from it the time
talked about my toilet paper dresses for
dolls
and then before you know it it was in
vogue italy and i’m like wait what
i like hello this is this is my toilet
paper
and and it’s in vogue magazine which is
like insane for me
which then gave me the courage to
publish a book so
besides my day job i can actually now
say that i’m a published author with a
book on
amazon and book depository um just so
you know i launched the book back in sri
lanka
in mount lavinia hotel and and like that
was kind of one of the highlights of my
life
which then led to me having my own
exhibition at mint museum
in in singapore where i also locally
launched the book
which then got me invited to be one of
the the guest artists
at barbie’s 60th birthday celebrations
in conjunction with the singapore tour
and oh by the way and what i did there
was that i tried to make dresses out of
singaporean icons instead so i use the
good morning towel
to make a gown i use singapore plastic
bags the ones we get in the market to
make a gown
and my favorite the chassis rice wrapper
chassis is like my favorite food it’s
even got the rubber band and the
chopsticks that come with the
come with the food um and that got me
into bazaar magazine
and i’m like i’m like wait what what’s
what’s going on this is
this is dolls yo um and and what happens
then is that because of my use of
upcycled recycled sustainable materials
i’m actually now also an official
spokesperson for one of the biggest pulp
and paper companies in the world
to talk about sustainability in
infection
and i continue to do work with them by
creating
dresses out of their tissue paper to
talk about sustainability
like i said when i began this it does
sound
shallow me standing up here talking
about myself
is one of the most uncomfortable things
i’ve ever had to do
um and you know to a lot of people it
may sound like success
but i define success a little bit
differently because success to me right
is the ability to feel completely in
control
of your own life because you’re going to
have to have that job you’re going to
have to have your family and and all
that
but being able to control your whole
life
um to me that that’s something that’s
precious it’s something that not a lot
of us
dare about that i just want to say like
imagine if i hadn’t been that weirdo who
brought the doll on a business trip
none of this none of this this avalanche
of stuff
would have happened if i wasn’t weird
so can you imagine something like that
has managed to shift the whole
conversation and these are words that i
didn’t make up these are words that were
held at me on the internet
from weird to gay as an insult again
that makes no sense but
weird gay hoarder poorly brought up
crazy rage asian loser
and i’ve somehow managed to shift that
whole conversation into one of
craftsmanship
into talent into design into skill
and that’s really you taking control of
your own narrative
as soon as your name goes out in public
um and i
i have to thank passion for that which
was point number three
this whole session has been about the
meaning of you and to be very honest i’m
41
and i’m still on a journey to becoming a
man it’s it’s not easy
we learn every day and barbie has been
my unlikely companion
but she’s also given me some pertinent
lessons as i as i mentioned
i’ve managed to prioritize protection of
my loved ones in my whole life
i’ve she’s given me some kind of
compassion and i
i say this as an advertising person we
very seldom have compassion
so being able to open my eyes to
people that need stuff it is
it’s huge for me and um barbie has also
allowed me to live with passion
my concluding thought is just know that
it’s okay to be different because you
never know what’s going to spiral from
there
playing with barbie could have proven to
reduce my manhood
if you think about it very logically but
barbie has actually made me into more of
a man than i ever dreamed possible
thank you
thank you so much