Let’s start with a self-introduction!
My name is Yu Sheng. I'm a cisgender gay man, 29 turning 30 and I run Heckin’ Unicorn, a queer brand based in Singapore.
How did you get started with Heckin Unicorn?
It started around two and a half years ago as a side project while I was working full time. I’m also a designer so designing cute stuff is kind of in my blood. It started off as a fun side project designing cute pride pins. I started off having six designs - the first batch of pins. Slowly over the years, it grew into a proper queer brand. It had more pin designs, and we expanded into other products. On top of just pins, we now have notebooks and socks. Eventually it grew into a brand that pushes pushing for social change and to raise awareness on queer issues.
Tell us about your journey on social media!
Before Heckin’ Unicorn, I wasn't a very active user of social media, especially Instagram, because most people use it to post pretty photos of themselves. And there's that, “I'm living a happy life”vibe, so I used it mainly to follow dog accounts, because dogs just make me happy (laughs).
But yeah, there was a bit of a learning curve when it came to posting things that people liked; what kind of content was engaging, what engagement on social media actually looked like. The good thing was that as a designer, I take pretty photos and that’s really helpful on Instagram. So initially, that was how the brand started - with pretty product photos. There was also a phase where I was trying out different types of content to see what resonated with audiences. If you scroll all the way back on the feed, you’ll be able to see some of those posts.
I tried featuring queer books, queer characters, music that referenced queer identities or were written by queer individuals. At some point in time, comics were something I experimented on, and it turned out to be pretty successful. So I draw all the comics that we publish, and it essentially uses humour to poke fun at ridiculous situations faced by individuals who are LGBTQ+. In these situations, there’s really nothing else to do but laugh, and that’s partly why the comics became quite successful. From then, I started creating more comics and after a while, blog posts started coming in.
Writing is something that isn’t intuitive to me because I’m quite shy, but someone mentioned in the comments that I should write about queer issues because they felt like I could write well based on my Instagram captions. So I tried it once, and it worked out. Eventually, the blog became a medium for us to talk about more serious matters. It’s an in-depth look at queer issues in Singapore.
The first blog post we published was about censorship in media spaces, and I broke down different IMDA regulations and explained how queer characters are banned from TV. This is why we don’t hear discussions about them on the radio, it’s not because people aren’t interested, or that radio hosts don’t want to talk about it. It’s that anyone who does gets fined.
After that first article, I released more articles about these heavier topics. One examined all the anti-LGBTQ+ regulations in country, there was a series that looked into “conversion therapy” practices in Singapore. Our latest article explores how schools in Singapore suppress queer identities with first-hand testimonies and quotes from real people and victims.
Over the last two and a half years, a lot of running Heckin’ Unicorn was learnt on the job. I didn’t know what would work right from the start.
You mentioned that Heckin’ Unicorn started out as a side project, now it’s your full time gig?
Yeah. I quit my full-time job in March last year. Right before COVID returned to Singapore.
Whoa, did that affect Heckin’ Unicorn business wise?
Yes, it did in the beginning. There were some logistical challenges because I ship overseas as well. And as you can imagine, flights were less frequent and orders took longer to ship out. But it’s fine now, after a while, people get used to buying things online. So we weren’t that badly affected.
Maybe you can share a little bit about the setbacks or hostility you faced on the business front?
When I started Heckin’ Unicorn, obviously I wasn't exposed to the trolls and the anti-LGBTQ+ community. But after running it for two and a half years it’s quite common now, it's almost routine. Whenever there are homophobic or transphobic comments made against the LGBTQ+ community, I’ll just delete or block the user. They do exist but they don’t surprise me anymore. Especially at the beginning when we started the blog and the comics, there were a lot more anti-LGBTQ+ comments on the posts.
These situations have to be dealt with sensitively. Let’s say our Instagram post depicts a survivor’s story with conversion therapy, and in comes a comment asserting that gay people can become straight. That’s very damaging because the survivor, others with similar experiences or people within the community who are already disturbed by these practices might read the comments. Then it becomes very stressful for me because I’ll be refreshing my feed to make sure that those nasty comments are deleted within an hour or two after the post goes up.
The Heckin’ Unicorn account is a safe space for queer people, and that’s one of our driving principles. I’ll have to step in the moment it doesn’t feel safe anymore. Having questions and discussions are fine, but the moment it crosses a line and starts becoming hostile or unsafe, that’s where I have to step in. I really didn’t expect having to spend a considerable amount of time in the beginning to make sure that there were no nasty or hurtful comments.
Another setback I faced was when my Facebook Business account was suspended. Because we’re a business, I run ads on Facebook and I was suspended due to a payment issue. I was like shit, did my money run out? I checked my bank account, my business and debit cards and everything was fine - there weren’t any payment issues because everything was paid on time. So I asked for help from Facebook and the answers provided were all very, very vague.
I was made to verify my personal identity - Yu Sheng, not Heckin’ Unicorn, to Facebook, again, for very vague reasons. I was never told exactly why I had to do it. My guess was that maybe because my brand is about an issue that’s against “national interest”, or it might be a sensitive topic or whatever. But had to follow their instructions because what else could I do right? And after a few weeks, my account was unsuspended.
The annoying that was that it was during November, which is peak retail period, and my sales were heavily affected because of this suspension.
It’s frustrating because as a queer brand, we just sell pins and notebooks. If we could be classified as something that’s ‘sensitive’… then something’s wrong with society. It was a very distressing period for me because the reasons provided from Facebook were very ambiguous. I was asked to submit a copy of my Identification Card and although I wasn’t doing anything illegal, it felt like - we know who you are, if anything happens, we know who to come after.
And it's very strange because Facebook’s not a Singapore-based company.
I don't think I was specifically singled out, it could be a situation where if someone posts something deemed as controversial, then a red flag is set off and things like this happen.
So you can run a business selling women or men’s fashion products or like, handphone cases, and you probably won’t have Facebook asking for your your personal I.C. But if you run a queer brand, then somehow you’ve crossed a certain line and you’re made to do that? That doesn’t sound very fair.
In line with that, has running this queer business ever affected you or threatened your privacy?
Not to that extent, because I also have my personal Instagram handle on Heckin’ Unicorn’s Instagram bio. People always think that it’s a mega corporation like Coca Cola, but like I’m not that rich you know. It’s just to let people now that this is a real person running the business.
The relative privilege I have is that I'm out to everyone - my friends, my family, and all my colleagues from my past jobs knew, and they were all very supportive. I have no issues identifying as a gay person, I have no issues identifying myself as the person running a queer brand in Singapore. And that itself puts me in a privileged position within the queer community.
I haven't received any negative comments or attacks against myself. On the flip side, I've received DMs from people who are thankful for the brand and the things we do. On the whole, this has been an overwhelmingly positive experience even if there are frustrating things that happen.
Tell us about the proudest moment in your career!
I think there are a few but the one that comes to mind was in April last year, April or June.
Heckin’ Unicorn called out Mediacorp for homophobic portrayals in the TV series ‘My Guardian Angels’. It was a Channel 8 show and they had really problematic homophobic scenes in the show. It started out because someone sent us a DM about it and I was shocked because I wouldn’t have thought that in 2020, Mediacorp would still be making such blatant anti-LGBTQ+ stereotypes. Like for example, a gay man with STDs who is also a pedophile, like woah. I thought they only did that in the 90s.
So we called them out on Instagram Stories and eventually posted a comic about it. We demanded an apology and eventually, they did apologise. I wasn’t expecting them to apologise but I was pleasantly surprised when the actor apologised first. When Mediacorp apologised, I think it was the first time that they apologised for anti-LGBTQ+ content that they’ve been producing for decades. So that really stood out to me because like oh wow, the monopoly of local entertainment felt compelled to apologise and that was really only possible because of social media. Because who am I right? I’m just one person. A lot of people who were angry at Mediacorp were individuals like myself. Without social media, it would be highly unlikely that Mediacorp would feel pressured to say anything.
That was one moment that I felt like it wasn’t crazy to think that social media can be used to push for change or to accelerate change.
You do up comics quite quickly, do you feel pressured in any way to engage with the latest and most current news to create new content continuously?
I feel compelled to address some of those issues, but not for the sake of content because things happen, and bullshit has to be called out whenever it happens, right? For example, earlier this year where a trans student wasn’t allowed to proceed with her hormone therapy because the school tried to intervene, I didn’t put out content for the sake of putting out content. It doesn’t make sense and that’s quite a fucked up thing to do if you’re doing it just for content. It’s more like okay, this happened, what can we do as a community to respond to a situation or help someone out?
When things like this happen, a lot of these victims are individuals who aren’t super rich or super influential, they have no one to help them with their situation so most of them use social media as a last resort. As a queer brand what I want to do is to push for social change, I want to look at these situations and think about how I can use Heckin’ Unicorn to help people out.
Sometimes it gets overwhelming and stressful because there’s that element of unpredictability. Like I’m so tired but I still have to address this particular issue. But something I’ve learnt from running this business for a couple of years is that it’s important to know when you need to take a break.
Otherwise I’ll feel the need to respond to everything that crops up. The thing is, I don’t have to do that, I don’t have to do everything immediately. Taking care of your mental well being is very important, it’s not a selfish thing to do because burning out is the worst possible scenario for everyone. It’s bad for you, it’s bad for your staff, it’s also bad for your customers and the people who follow you because you can’t help them.
I’ve had to learn that because I’m quite a workaholic. It’s not easy, and it's not intuitive because taking care of yourself can feel selfish, but it’s not. If you’re down, then you can’t help people who are struggling.
Burning out isn’t fun, but at the same time being quite an established local queer brand, how do you balance the need to be there for the community but maintain your own sanity as well?
That’s definitely a priority skill. In the month leading up to June, because of the lead up to Pride Month, I was feeling quite burnt out, and my intern was also feeling the same way.
That’s when I decided that we were going to take a week-long break. It was really overwhelming and to many people, Pride Month is in June and that’s when things start to happen. But for us running this business is 24/7, so we have to increase the energy for Pride Month. At that point I just decided to go offline. We updated our website, our socials and that’s it. Nothing happened. The world continued moving.
But of course if something really drastic happens then it’s a different story and I have to reevaluate what the priority is. But I’m innately motivated tp stop bullshit from happening. So if something drastic does happen, I will feel compelled to do something about it.
Thankfully, shitty things don’t happen that frequently.
Some people want their feed to be wholesome and nice, but there's also the ugly side with injustices all over the world. There are definitely people who decide that they’re not going to look at things like that because they want to feel good when they go on social media. What does having a healthy screen time mean to you?
I think in terms of healthy screen time, it really depends on what a person is looking for on social media. For me, on my personal Instagram, I follow mostly dog accounts, because, and that's a deliberate choice, I want to see cute dog doing inconsequential and stupid things. It makes me happy and and I don't follow a lot of humans because sometimes I feel like oh my god, they're doing so well.
But when it comes to Heckin’ Unicorn, our entire feed is all about queer issues. Because for queer folk, we’re already dealing with issues in our private lives, and for my work, I’m dealing with those issues 24/7. It’s all queer you know? Sometimes it feels a bit much, then I’ll take a break. So a healthy screen time really depends on your mental state. It depends on how well you are mentally to be able to deal with heavier issues.
What do you feel about the idea of being an online citizen - that you could be part of so many communities all over the world, including Singapore?
For Heckin’ Unicorn, being online is quite important for the brand. Many queer organisations mostly exist online because they can’t be mentioned on mainstream media platforms. That’s why many queer organisations and brands have a big online presence. A lot of information is disseminated online because there isn’t an alternative space that we can exist in. So I’m lucky that I was born into an era where the internet exists. It helps people find each other, compared to 1990s, where it was a lot more difficult for queer folks to find each other.
Now that we’re all online, it’s much easier for us to understand things we’re not familiar with, or things that weren’t taught in school. It’s much easier to find out about organisations and the services they provide and who to turn to if you need help. So the benefit of being an online citizen is that you have much more access to information and it helps people feel less lonely because they know that they’re not alone. Of course being online can’t replace a face to face interaction, there will always be drawbacks. But for now, it really helps queer people find information, find other people.
With what you mentioned about information being readily available, is there a fear of being cancelled? Or the fear that you might post something that could be construed as problematic or insensitive to some people?
My point of view is that people who tend to cry cancel culture tend to be more privileged. The reality is that they’ve said or done something questionable and they’re essentially being made accountable for it by others. Of course there’s always a line to be drawn once it gets too personal, like stop it - it’s not nice and it doesn’t help anyone.
If you think about, people in minority communities have been ‘cancelled’ in Singapore for decades but when someone says something homophobic or racist, then suddenly it becomes cancel culture? When you say something wrong and refuse to apologise or acknowledge its consequences, thats not cancel culture. You’re just refusing to admit you’ve made a mistake. And making mistakes is fine, humans always make mistakes. It’s more of how you react to your mistakes, especially in a public forum. If you’re a public personality, how you react is, I think, more important than actually making the mistake.
The whole idea of cancel culture is people who are inherently privileged refusing to take responsibility for something they’ve said that has hurt other people and their only argument is that they’ve been cancelled. Like you’re not cancelled, it’s called consequences.
I do worry about posting things that might be insensitive, or things that might be wrong. But my concern comes mostly from how it might hurt people, or if wrong information is being conveyed, because people might misconstrue wrong information as the truth. The good thing about social media is… you know the three dots? You know, tap it, delete the post or comment, it’s gone. Then just post an apology you know, it’s not difficult. I’ve done it before, posting things that might have been worded wrongly or things that are insensitive - just take it down and post a new one. If you’re fast enough and it’s a genuine mistake, take it down and post a new one. If it’s wrong and people have already seen it, take it down, post a new one and explain yourself. No one’s going to cancel you. The only people who are cancelled are the ones who refuse to admit that they were in the wrong.
It’s scary because the more well known your account is, the more people will be watching you. But like, I signed up for this, so I’d better live up to whatever standards I impose on others.
So if you could change one thing about social media, what would it be?
It’s hard to say… One of the things that has resulted from content being put out so quickly on social media is that we tend to consume it very quickly, and people tend to react quickly as well. Sometimes they overreact, so instead of asking a question, it becomes an accusation. Emotions come too quickly and I think that’s an unfortunate side effect of living with social media.
I wish people would be more aware that they’re projecting certain emotions or accusations when they’re typing stuff. Sometimes some will say they’re asking questions, but if you read it, it’s like hey… you’re making a very charged accusation. It takes a lot more to respond to that than to respond to an actual question. It doesn't happen that frequently, but it has happened before and it is very draining because we have to respond in a way that steers the accusation or comment towards a civil conversation.
So, what's next for you, do you have any projects that you're excited to start?
I’m writing and doing research about how in the 90s, the police in Singapore used to do many raids where they would round up, detain, arrest and charge gay men. They called it ‘anti gay operations’. I didn’t know about this until someone told me and I think many people our age, or younger, would not know about this. And it’s interesting because it wasn’t that long ago that this happened.
Wow. That’s so exciting - what’s the research like?
A lot of old newspapers are in the archives at the National Library but a lot of the articles that relate to queer identities or queer issues are restricted, so you can’t access them using your own computer, you have to physically go down to the library and log in with your I.C.
So I have screenshots of articles from 1930s and yeah, the National Library Board (NLB) might know who has access to these articles if they want to find out. But I’m fine with them knowing this, because I’m going to publish it anyway.
The last question, if you could tell your 24 year old self one thing what would it be?
Oof, I was probably a fresh grad at 24. What would I tell myself? Wow, I’m not sure.
I did accounting in University, but when I was 24, I already knew I wasn’t going to do accounting. I think back then, I was still trying to figure out whether being a designer would be a viable career because in the past Singaporean designers get paid terribly. It was because of the boom in tech startups that there was a sudden need for UX-design and all that.
So yeah, I guess the most important thing I would tell myself back then probably would be that there is a career to be made in design.
This written interview was edited for brevity and clarity. Due to the nature of the topics discussed, this interview will not be available as an audio recording.
