Singapore has no shortage of interesting people, and every few years, there’s a new generation of media personalities that take the digital world by storm. With the birth of blogging and Instagram, the influencer era has given us lots of engaging content and personalities in the realms of beauty, fashion, food, and lifestyle.
Here are some iconic Singaporean bloggers and influencers we all remember who paved the way for modern-day content creation.
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Dawn Yang started her blogging career in 2004 and she became an overnight sensation, going on to win multiple influencer awards including “Hottest Blogger” in 2004, “Babe of the Year” in 2005, and Style & Beauty Icon for young Asian women in 2011.
Although she was steadily gaining popularity in the 2000s, her unexpected feud with fellow blogger Xiaxue in 2008 made her even more famous. The feud between Dawn and XiaXue was even described as akin to a Manchester United vs Arsenal match, and people were eating it up.
The online catfight saw Xiaxue calling Dawn out on getting plastic surgery and not admitting to it. And that resulted in people doing their own sleuthing by digging up old photos of Dawn that revealed she did look different before.
In hindsight, Dawn probably wasn’t ready to talk about her surgeries at the time, and that’s understandable. After all, she wasn’t the only one getting cosmetic work done, and the public outcry naturally died down after a while.
She also decided to address her surgeries in an interview, saying, “Back then when the drama started, plastic surgery wasn’t as mainstream or common as it is now. At that time, it was just a personal choice and I didn’t feel that it was something that needed to be broadcasted. I felt that people would think it’s crazy, and there’d be backlash.”
Dawn still has a large social media following with 100k followers and lots of brand collabs, although her content is more about her self expression these days.
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Defining their own brand of humour, dynamic duo Charlotte and Michelle, better known as Youtiao666 made waves in Singapore and the region with their tongue-in-cheek escapades. The girls were former course mates at Lasalle College of the Arts, and they clicked immediately after meeting because no one else shared their brand of goofy characteristics.
The union of this “power couple” was an instant hit with the pair becoming famous through their dubsmashing vines. One of their earlier videos in 2015 lip syncing to police sirens racked up hundreds of millions of views, and the pair have been making people laugh with their content ever since. What most love about them is their ability to not take themselves too seriously – a very different trait from most other bloggers who depend on a certain aesthetic for their personal brands.
Being attractive, the girls do get asked if they’re lesbians and their reply to that is, “We are brothers.” Queens. Sadly, in the last few years, the girls have posted only a few videos on their Instagram causing many of their fans to ask what’s happened to them?
In response, the duo shared a clubbing video very recently saying that they’re taking a break from making content to prioritise their mental health, in true Youtiao666 style. We hope to see the girls back doing their thing when they are able to again.
Award-winning blogger and internet personality Wendy Cheng aka Xiaxue, is no stranger to controversy from the moment she started her career way back in 2003. Her no-holds-barred approach to various topics earned her quite a reputation for being brutally honest, although some might say her “honesty” is rather debatable.
Channelling Regina George, Xiaxue famously recreated the pink ‘Burn Book’ that included other well-known bloggers like Yan Kay Kay and Dawn Yang who got on her bad side because of personal rivalry. Xiaxue was also never one to back down in any online drama, and anyone who came against her suffered some serious backlash by getting “exposed”.
Although her personal stance on non-censorship in a country like Singapore was obviously intriguing, an eventual pushback to her commentary happened when other netizens started “exposing” Xiaxue back with some much older tweets that were deemed racist, offensive, and harmful.
In the last few years, she has taken a big step back from her main blog with her last post being in July 2020, but she’s still very active on YouTube where she has 244k subscribers, and Instagram with 576k followers. She also revealed earlier this year that she had split up with her American husband of 17 years, Mike Sayre, calling it an amicable decision between them.
Ex–model, YouTuber, and fashion blogger Yan Kay Kay is not just a pretty face, she was also a gifted student who went to a string of elite schools that included Raffles Girls School, Anglo Chinese Junior College, and National University of Singapore. ICYMI, Kay Kay’s modelling career took off when she got featured as the cover girl for FHM in 2008, and she was even ranked #7 in the magazine’s Top 100 Sexiest Women in Singapore.
She went on to win the Channel 5 reality show, The S Factor in 2009 before creating her own brand, KandyKayne in 2011. Becoming an entrepreneur, she opened her own KandyKayne boutique in Bugis Village, although it’s no longer in operation.
Kay Kay was famously associated with none other than Xiaxue, and both bloggers were once BFFs before Xiaxue started a smear campaign against her and Kay Kay’s former blog network, Gushcloud. Both bloggers were also known for sharing a passionate kiss in a YouTube post before their public fallout.
Having rebranded herself as a digital creator, Kay Kay is still actively involved in brand deals and is the co-founder of beauty brand, Supersenji. She’s definitely been a trailblazer in her line of work and also in her personal life having married her husband, Brandon Loh, who is 11 years younger, and starting a family with him in her late 30s.
A fashion, beauty, and lifestyle influencer, Bong Qiu Ting, also known by her online moniker Bong Qiu Qiu, came on the scene in 2008 when she was only 21 years old. She started her blog as an online “diary” to share her interests and within a decade, it grew into a full-time career with multiple platforms.
Qiu Ting keeps her audience engaged by sharing lots of personal stories such as her plastic surgery journey from start to finish, getting married, and having three children with her hubby, Joshua Tan. Apart from being a content creator on Instagram, Facebook, and YouTube, Qiu Ting frequently does hosting gigs.
Known for her fashion savvy styles and tips, Qiu Ting became the host of Clicknetwork’s Budget Barbie series on YouTube where she would shop for great finds within a $100 budget. These days, Qiu Ting does a lot of mommy-blogger content with her three kids as she raises the next generation of media personalities. Each of her kids have their own IG handle, all run by their enterprising mum.
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Singapore got to know Christabel Chua when she became a pageant queen in 2013 by competing in Miss Universe Singapore. She not only made it into the finals of Miss Universe Singapore 2013, she also won the “Miss Photogenic” award, catapulting her into social media fame.
She then started vlogging on Instagram and Youtube under @bellywellyjelly, and in 2014, she joined TheSmartLocal Singapore as a content creator. Christabel quickly became a familiar face on YouTube during her TSL days, hosting many video series including PrettySmart.
In 2018, Christabel faced some personal struggles that led her to share what she went through in a heartfelt open letter. Her bravery was inspiring for many as she offered her support to others who may have faced similar situations.
Christabel is still one of the most followed beauty influencers in Singapore with 294k Instagram followers, and she works with big brands like Dyson and Fresh Beauty. She’s also the founder of her own lifestyle brand Kāi, which sells a range of chic stationary, tote bags, stickers, and cards.
Andrea Chong, also known as Drea, opened her Instagram account in 2013 when she became a blogshop model. Very quickly, she went on to be one of Singapore’s top-tier influencers by hosting the popular fashion web-series, That F Word on Clicknetwork.tv, and emceeing an exclusive showcase for Victoria Beckham at Marina Bay Sands.
One undeniable trait in Andrea is her ambition because she kickstarted her online career with modelling and hosting opportunities, all while completing her degree at Nanyang Technological University Singapore.
Being a fashion blogger, Andrea also designed capsule collections for local labels like Love, Bonito and The Closet Lover, as well as international brands like Superga. On top of her involvement in many successful projects, Andrea juggles being a mum of two while handling her thriving businesses.
Her enjoyment designing capsule collections saw her become a full time fashion designer herself with the launch of her fashion label, Good Addition, that she co-founded with Lloyd’s Inn co-founder and property developer, Joan Chang.
The youngest one on the list is Naomi Neo who started creating content and blogging in 2011 when she was only 15. Her big break came early on when she scored her first brand collaboration in the same year. In just over a decade, she now has 874k followers on Instagram and 457k followers on YouTube.
Now a wife and mum of two, Naomi was in the news earlier this year when she threw a lavish dinosaur-themed birthday party for her youngest daughter Zyla. The party apparently cost a whopping $20k and it was held at her family’s 3-storey home in the Sunset Way area.
Giving meaning to doing it for the gram, Naomi gets a lot of attention – both positive and negative – for flaunting her lavish lifestyle online.
Being a smart cookie, Naomi has capitalised on her growing follower count by recently launching her own holistic skincare brand called Empath that specialises in body, skin, and hair wellness.
While it may be a pipe dream for many, it goes to show that creating your own platform and becoming successful takes a lot of grit and resilience. And it’s definitely not easy being in the public eye, since it can make you an easy target of harassment or cyberbullying.
Sure, it may look fabulous from the outside, but these ladies show us how much they work to build their brands, teaching us that if they can do it, so can you.
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