SOCIAL MEDIA GENERATION
Get ready for a new generation of child stars who are growing up under the social media spotlight.
Last week, the online world went gaga when Hannah Quinlivan, aka Mrs Jay Chou, posted a close-up of her baby's forehead and closed eyes on Weibo.
Since it went up on Thursday, the post has drawn more than 25,000 comments and more than 168,000 likes.
Commentators gushed over baby Hathaway's long lashes and wished "the little princess" well.
Another social media star who emerged this week was the nine-year-old daughter of singer Faye Wong and actor Li Yapeng.
-
NOTABLE TRENDS
-
#SLFLSINGAPORE
Singapore's Twittersphere exploded in hormonal joy last Thursday when it was announced that 5 Seconds Of Summer were coming to town on March 3 for a gig. They're an Australian pop punk band with a huge social media following.
ASIAN REALITY TV
Malaysian talent competition Akademi Fantasia (#Af2015) and Singapore singing competition Vasantham Star (#Vstar2015) trended early last week thanks to finale episodes.
POP RULES
Proving that old Tower Records motto No Music No Life, Twitter last week threw up more music- related hashtag trends. Singer Demi Lovato's #Confident album and British pop band The Vamps' second album #WakeUp were all the buzz online.
Li Yan has rarely been photographed before as she was born with a cleft palate and her parents were careful to shelter her from paparazzi.
But the little girl posted a few selfie and make-up tutorials on the online video community Meipai last Sunday and became an instant hit.
No doubt one of the reasons her videos went viral was because they offered rare glimpses inside the home of the famously reclusive Wong.
Li Yan's video showed her mother's rooms, with shelves and dressing tables crowded with skincare and make-up products.
By last Tuesday however, the budding social media princess had shut down her public account after a chat with her father.
On Weibo, daddy Li thanked netizens who liked his daughter's videos and said: "Dad actually saw them several times."
Li Yan's older half-sister Leah Dou has also established a somewhat cautious social media presence. Dou is an aspiring singer-songwriter with a Facebook page as well as a YouTube channel.
Her music video for her new single posted in May has drawn more than 82,000 views. The 18-year-old is the daughter of Wong and rocker Dou Wei.
Offspring of Singapore celebrities have also attracted social media following.
Actress Quan Yifeng's 16-year-old daughter Eleanor Lee became a hit on Weibo after starring in an Apple commercial, and currently has about 320,000 fans. She also has an Instagram account (@eleanorleex) with about 66,000 followers.
And the home-grown equivalent of Hathaway is probably Zed, the son of Fann Wong and Christopher Lee. He appears regularly on mummy's Instagram account (@fannaiaiwong) where she has 214,000 followers.
Whenever baby Zed appears in photos, the like counts often hit 10,000.
PRINT LEADS PURE PLAYERS
Digital news media last week seemed to be taking the lead from print.
For the Democratic debate on Tuesday evening, the homepages of pure players (the industry term for purely digital websites) were hardly distinguishable from the digital front pages of print media.
It was the first time the presidential hopefuls for the Democratic Party in the United States had gathered to debate issues.
And the general conclusion of the serious print papers - The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Boston Globe - was that Mrs Hillary Clinton had won the day with confidence and style.
The homepage of Huffington Post, for example, mirrored print except with snappier headlines.
Closer to home, one online brouhaha was triggered by an opinion piece published in this newspaper.
Ambassador-at-large Bilahari Kausikan offered an astringent realpolitik take on Malaysia's political situation and its possible repercussions for Singapore which went viral online.
Pure player mothership.com capitalised on print mileage and wrote no less than three articles about the online spat between
Mr Kausikan and Malaysian opposition MPs Tony Pua and Ong Kian Ming, and Malaysian academic Danny Quah.
GRAMMAR GROUSES, PART TWO
A follow-up to the grammar homework online brouhaha caused by tech start-up vice-president and Democratic Progressive Party member Nadine Yap when she posted her daughter's grammar answer online.
She has posted another lengthy post after her first one went viral, and attracted trolls who slammed both her (for posting the homework) and the hapless teacher (for marking in what some thought was a baseless fashion).
In her second post, Ms Yap strikes a balanced tone in defending her decision to post the homework as well as standing up for the teacher who, she said, "is encouraging and dedicated" as well as "a positive and caring introduction to formal schooling".
She concludes with a call for more courtesy: "Rather than meeting perceived arrogance with anger, inflexibility with disdain, etc. perhaps we can be examples of the way we'd like the authorities to speak to us - clarity in our positions and explanations, persistence in our efforts, yet civil and - perhaps even gracious."
