Paper short abstract:

Between viral content on social media, the impact of the Influencer industry, and a nation-wide resurgence of cultural nostalgia, young couples in Singapore are innovating memorable Chinese wedding rituals in the age of the internet. This paper presents preliminary findings on such practices.

Paper long abstract:

In 2016, Chinese wedding traditions attained populist prominence among young Singaporeans at the intersection of gate-crashing documented and viral on social media, Influencers who were promoting advertorials for traditional Chinese weddings, and a resurgence of ethnic and material nostalgia stimulated by a state-sponsorship of branded histories in 2015 during Singapore's 50th anniversary. While such virality has included extreme, unconventional, or highly creative instances of gate-crashing, Influencers have inculcated masses of young followers on different aspects of Chinese wedding ceremonies such as "guodali", "kua" costumes, wedding auspicions and superstitions, "shuangxi" themed wedding favours, and themed catering. This new form of gatekeeping, knowledge dissemination, and cultural policing by young Singaporean couples and vendors in their twenties is unprecedented given that much of Singapore's young and multi-cultural ethnic histories have been formally streamlined by state-sanctioned narratives, or informally inherited through oral tradition via networks of senior generations. Taking an anthropological approach through traditional ethnographic fieldwork among to-be-wedded and recently wedded couples and wedding service providers, and contemporary internet ethnography among the social media microcelebrities known as Influencers, this paper presents preliminary findings from participant observation and personal interviews on young Singaporean couples' motivations to return to Chinese wedding traditions through highly material, documentary, and celebrity-inspired projects.