Losing Interest in Stefanie Sun Yanzi

I first started listening to Stefanie Sun when I was 18 years old in the year 2000. Back then I was in G1-Army and I was fascinated by her first album. I bought her album, listened to it whenever I had the chance to, and I would attend her free concerts and also participated in her discussion forum at Warner Music Taiwan. I learned from the media that she was from NTU, and it got me interested in studying at NTU and I changed my course from NUS to NTU. I ORDed in 2002 and started attending school at NTU that year, and by then I was starting to suspect my passion over a Singaporean pop icon.

I still remember screaming out loud at Stefanie Sun's publicity gigs, saying that "我们永远支持你！" or "We will always support you!" It felt really good to be part of something big, like a fan base. I made friends over the internet, folks who were fellow fans like me, whether in Singapore, Malaysia, China, Taiwan, or as far as Canada. It was fun, la. Yet, I felt that I might have overdone it when I said I'll always support the pop idol. It just didn't make sense to me though at that point it felt like the good thing to do.

Fast forward by a decade, I was still listening to one of my favourite songs from Stefanie, i.e. Tian Hei Hei or 天黑黑. It was a song about one's growing up with one's maternal grandmother, and that song gave me plenty of meaning because I really did love my maternal grandmother the most.

Yet, the inevitable happened: My maternal grandmother passed away in the year 2012, I lost the one whom I loved the most, and my world came collapsing down. Everything seemed meaningless to me after I lost my grandmother, and one of the first things I did when moving house was to throw away all my Sun Yanzi collectables, which included CDs and posters. For some bizarre reason, I actually felt betrayed, but by what I don't really know for sure. Yet, everything in the entertainment industry seemed extremely fake to me, I felt as if I had wasted a lot of my precious time and resources chasing idols which were transient and impermanent to begin with.

Another dozen of years passed, and by now Stefanie Sun Yanzi is married with a caucasian husband and two kids. Recently, her younger sister Yanmei was in the news for a sudden outburst proclaiming that she was disavowing or disowning Stefanie Sun as her sister. I actually felt gratified by the news, because that's what I wanted to do too: I wanted to disavow my promise to support Stefanie Sun forever and I want my life back. I don't want to be known as a Stefanie Sun fan, because it means totally nothing to me.

This month, Stefanie Sun held her first concerts in Singapore after a long hiatus. I didn't attend a single session, preferring to save money and give my mother her household allowance instead. Money is hard to come by as I age, and I no longer derive any satisfaction supporting an ageing pop idol when I can buy my mother and father a good meal for the price of a concert ticket.

Somehow, love has become hatred, and I just wanted to be honest and true to myself by saying this:

Stefanie Sun Yanzi, I hate you. Get out of my life, out of sight, out of mind, I don't want to hear any more of your glamorous news. You mean totally nothing to me! I will never spend an extra cent supporting you and your overhyped publicity shows.

I miss my late grandparents and I love my parents instead. If I have money, I'll rather let my father drink more beer than buy another Stefanie Sun collateral. At least my father loves me. As for Sun Yanzi? She doesn't love me at all, she doesn't even remember we fans existed. It is a waste of my time and resources if I continue supporting her. D@mn.