Neil Humphreys: Singaporeans love a CEO sex scandal because they secretly envy the energy
What do you get when you cross a CEO with an online influencer? Outrage, jealousy, and perhaps even a hint of admiration.
With all the world-ending threats in recent weeks, Singaporeans can always be trusted to have a meltdown over an alleged extra-marital affair between two people we don't know.
Don't get me wrong, I was one of them (one of the people having a meltdown, I mean, not one of the folks in the alleged affair. With my chronic back and shoulder issues, I struggle to raise a smile these days, let alone anything else).
Because I've long suspected that jealousy is the underlying reason for our obsession with sex scandals. In a murder mystery, we want to know the 'who'. In a psychological thriller, we want to know the 'why'.
In a Singaporean sex scandal, we want to know the 'how'.
These people all so jelly
In a sweat-drenched, sleep-deprived, overworked country, with less space than an MRT train during rush hour, how on earth do we find the time, space, energy, and cunning to have an extra-marital affair?
It's not so much moral outrage over the alleged adultery as it is begrudging admiration over the fitness levels.
It's already hard enough to be a Singapore-based CEO or an online influencer. One must shamelessly sell products that they might not even believe in and write self-aggrandising posts on social media — and the other is an online influencer.
I'm just a writer and, quite honestly, I can barely get through a Netflix movie in the evenings, largely because they're three weeks long and Johnny Exposition pops up in every other scene to regurgitate the plot.
As an author, I'd struggle to muster the enthusiasm for just sexting a mistress. It's like the old gynaecologist joke — after a hard day at the office, the thought of going home to another one…
The aphrodisiac killers: worst band name ever
In Singapore, we are surrounded by aphrodisiac killers.
So there's a begrudging envy, or a curiosity at least, at how these people overcome the impotent elephants in the room i.e. we do not make enough babies in Singapore. We don't even do enough of that thing that makes babies. We rarely get enough privacy to even attempt that thing.
Thanks to our values of filial piety, we often live in wonderful multi-generational households. It's less wonderful when an amorous couple are trying to do their national service, just as grandma bursts into the room like Liang Po Po, saying they're out of cucumber.
And then, against all reasonable odds, a high-profile couple engage in an extra-marital affair. As an outraged nation – and few nations do hypocritical outrage quite like Singapore – we swoon in indignation.
How dare these people have extra-marital sex! We're struggling to find the time just to have regular marital sex! In fact, we considered regular marital sex just last Saturday, but we watched the first 20 minutes of the Liverpool game — and we were snoring.
To keep the strained football analogy going, I think Singapore's obsession with extra-marital affairs is like being a long-suffering West Ham United supporter. We're fixated with the art of playmaking, but we never seem to do it properly or regularly ourselves. Meanwhile, other fellas are pulling off doubles – or even trebles if they play away in Batam.
TED Talk, please
Perhaps we're looking through the wrong end of the telescope. Rather than chastise adulterers, we should be sticking them on time-management advisory panels.
Most PowerPoint presentations are less appealing than lifelong celibacy. Imagine a panel titled "Sex and productivity: how two can become one" and it's fronted by former political and business leaders. We'd be queuing around the block for a conference ticket.
Being able to maintain a career and two sexual partners in this tropical, energy-sapping climate — well, no wonder Lee Kuan Yew called air-conditioning one of the greatest inventions in history.
But the latest storm in an office unit has introduced two new terms to my hipster lexicon — snark and tea-spilling. Previously, snark was something my mother gave me for spilling tea on the sofa.
But in the angriest, darkest corners of today's internet, snark communities gossip about celebrities and tea-spilling groups do the same about anyone, famous or otherwise. Both have been busy this week.
However, as the Beckham brand recently discovered, when an influencer of any description manufactures an artificial reality of one's flawless existence, then the curtain only needs to be pulled back once and the illusion is shattered. "Me, Myself and I" Incorporated has only one monetisable asset. If it's tarnished, then there's literally nothing left to sell.
That's the pertinent concern for the influencer culture. They are often expected to sell perfection, but nobody's perfect, are they?
I'm certainly not. I asked my wife if she thought I was capable of an affair, and she spilled her tea. (Literally. She didn't pen an angry Reddit post about my inadequacies. There are only so many hours in a day).
As she pointed out, I'll never make it with a second woman if I can't make it through the second half of a Netflix movie.
Neil Humphreys is an award-winning writer and radio host, a successful author and a failed footballer.
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