Haro Singapore

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Haro Singapore is a blog that was started in 2005 to showcase the real side of Singapore. This encompasses ugly scenes unlikely to be reported in the media, and the blog entries are often accompanied with real-world photographs. Topics have included schoolgirls getting scolded in public for requesting community donations, as well as kids who became "vagrants" for days to secure a place to see their Hong Kong pop idols.

Some Singaporeans are unhappy about the content of this blog that shows the unpleasant aspects of society. These detractors are, for the most part, reluctant to leave their name or some form of identification together with their comments. A frequent point brought up is the morality of taking photographs of people without their permission. However, this is not an illegal act in Singapore as long as it is done overtly in a public place without violating others' privacy. ^[1] In addition, the law does allow a person to express a statement of fact that is true or give an opinion or comment provided it is based on facts.

This blog has a sizeable underground following from a Singaporean forum, Hardwarezone Forums. It has gained mention in the prominent Singaporean tabloid, Today. In Singapore, "loud" blogs have been known to gather huge audiences, as seen in the case of Acidflask, Xiaxue, and Talk Rock.

It is speculated that the Singapore media's STOMP online citizen journal portal was in turn inspired by Haro Singapore's daring antics.

It is also speculated that the blog is a social experiment using Singapore as the test ground and Singaporeans as the subjects. The methodology appears to be twofold - photos of ugly incidents are put up for critique by the masses to observe the reaction (which is usually negative to both the blogger as well as his photo subjects), and in addition, nasty comments by the masses who visit his site appear to display the self-righteous attitude of the general citizenry.

Work on a short film, "Haro Singapore! The Movie" has started in 2006. This appears to be a 1 hour short special featuring real unorchestrated video footage from Singapore.

1 Inspiration for the blog
2 How the name came about
3 Reference
4 External links

[edit] Inspiration for the blog

The blog owner drew inspiration from another "This is what we're really like" blog called Masamania, which showcases the real culture in Japan. The style of writing adopted is very similar to that of Gonzo journalism.

[edit] How the name came about

The creator claims to be a sentient sausage with an IQ of 294, and a product of his country's education system. However, he appears to have serious grammatical problems, as exhibited in his entries.

The site creator is well-known on IRC channels for also having a mild form of dyslexia. Certain english words could not pronounced easily by him as he was heavily influenced by the Japanese language; ie. hello become haro, and police became porice.

Following this, an IRCer named Neisseria, offered the site creator the name "Haro Singapore!", paying homage to an old politically-correct documentary called Hey Singapore.