Plantdemic: The Rise of Pretentious Rarity
By Tan Yu Kai
June 2022 FEATURE
THERE IS THE pandemic, and then, there is the plantdemic – an emerging social phenomenon of mass buying exorbitant houseplants for, among other reasons, plain boredom, and parading them on social media in hope of becoming the next “plant-fluencer”. The interweb and the University of WhatsApp are the fountains of wisdom on modern plant-growing, and it is here our exploration begins…“OMG!! Look at this amazing God’s CREATION!!”I received in the dead of night, an image thus captioned from a “plant...
Tan Yu Kai
is a Penangite biologist-cum-artist passionate about human relationalities with the natural world. He is a triple major in Biology, Earth & Environmental Sciences and Anthropology, and was a Research Fellow at the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History.
