Singapore's first online rally

Internet and Politics 

Singapore

FAIL

Dedicated Local, Determined leader. 

Sounds familiar? 

This is indeed the first Singapore rally held purely online by Singapore politician, Desmond Lim. This is during the Singapore-by election, 2013.

It all sounds innovative and exiting right?

Truth is, let's just say it is not the most glorious moment in Singapore's history of political campaigns. 

While being innovative is always a good thing, one has to worry about the most basic things first - Speech and the ability to touch the heart and souls of your crowd. 

Doing some online is actually really risky, this is because of anonymity.  People are much more brave with what they say due to the fact that they can hide behind the shield of anonymity. Hence, anything done online will be more critically judged.

                                                               

Therefore, it is crucial to be absolutely ready, in fact, readier than maybe a normal physical campaign, if a politician wants to do an online campaign. 

Obama was definitely up to the challenge, but was Desmond Lim up for this challenge? 
I sincerely doubt so.

The way he spoke was the among the most criticised regarding his campaign. Singaporeans were making fun of his speech, and disliking his YouTube his video for it. 

Soon enough, his speech became a common joke among Singaporeans, and this is definitely not what Desmond Lim was trying to achieve when he decided to be the odd one out by conducting this online campaign. 

At the end of the day, he did not managed to get the minimum vote in order to get his campaign money reimbursed. That shows how much Singaporeans have disliked his methods of campaign.

Lesson learnt here, doing anything online could be easy and rewarding; however, they online community can also crush you down if you don't do a good job. No one wants to be the joke of the Internet, especially not someone who wants to lead his community and be a leader everyone can look up to.