Mrbrown

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The correct title of this article is mrbrown. The initial letter is shown capitalized due to technical restrictions.

Lee Kin Mun, aka mrbrown, is a Singaporean blogger well known for his social and political commentary. Affectionately known by many as Singapore's "Blogfather", mrbrown is one of the more notable bloggers in the Singaporean blogosphere. His podcast attracts some 20,000 downloads per day.^[1]

1 the mrbrown show
2 The WTF! Show
3 Singapore National Education
4 Censorship
5 Listed
6 Notes
7 External links

[edit] the mrbrown show

Main article: the mrbrown show

mrbrown (right) and Mr Miyagi (left), the producers and hosts of the mrbrown show, shown here on the cover of Digital Life.

Created in March 2005, the mrbrown show is a podcast produced by mrbrown. It was formerly co-produced by Mr Miyagi, another local blogger, who has since left the show to pursue other interests. The show showcases guests from various quarters of Singapore, and parodies a wide variety of subjects, ranging from VISA's advertising campaign starring Richard Gere, to political satire. Zhng My Car, a recurring series in the mrbrown show, is a spoof of MTV's Pimp My Ride, and has seen over 100,000 downloads.

[edit] The WTF! Show

Similarly produced and hosted by mrbrown and Mr Miyagi, the WTF! Show is a vodcast that will cover the latest in video games, gadgets and technology. As of June 2006, the first episode of the WTF! show is still under development.

[edit] Singapore National Education

mrbrown wrote a series entitled Singapore National Education. As a form of satire, this series discussed local events, highlighting many ironies in government policies and poking fun at the behavior of Singaporeans.

The title appears to be a play on the Singapore government's National Education program, which has the stated aims of developing national cohesion, the instinct for survival and confidence in the future.^[2]

Singapore National Education was released in parts; the first part was published on 24 Sep 1997 on the newsgroup soc.culture.singapore. They were later archived and published on mrbrown's website. The series has since petered out; the latest issue is part 108, dated 25 Jul 2005.

[edit] Censorship

See also: Censorship in Singapore and OB marker

On 30 June 2006, mrbrown wrote an article, titled "S'poreans are fed, up with progress!", for his weekly opinion column in Today newspaper concerning the rising costs of living in Singapore. ^[3] Three days later, on 3 July, an official from the Ministry of Information, Communications and the Arts (MICA) published a response letter on the same newspaper calling mrbrown a "partisan player" whose views "distort the truth". ^[4] On July 6, the newspaper suspended his column.^[5] Mr Miyagi subsequently resigned from his column.

Later, Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong responded to the unhappiness raised in MICA's handling of the incident. He stated that "mrbrown had hit out wildly at the Government and in a very mocking tone", and that the government had to respond to such criticsms for fear of them eventually being treated as true. He also stated that national issues should not be debated in such a fashion (referring to mrbrown's article). In spite of that, PM Lee claimed that Singapore was an open society.^[6]