2026-07-18
49 分钟The Economist.
I'm old enough to remember the first breakout of online dating services.
In those early days, looking for love in cyberspace came with lots of stigma,
lots of suspicion that what was being advertised was in some way not real.
Short guys claiming to be tall, poor women hinting at riches, that kind of thing.
Love blossomed anyway, of course.
All that stigma by now long gone.
But in the internet era, somehow there's always a way for things to get weirder.
Like, what happens when what's being advertised is blatantly not real, not realistic,
not even a fair reflection of what could be real, but nobody's really bothered.
I'm Jason Palmer and this is the weekend intelligence.
My colleague Sue-Lin Wong has been spending some furtive time immersed in what is basically just a game.
You've got your fictional setting in the future, you've got your extraterrestrial beings to battle,
but you've also got a crew of incredibly caring, intimate, smoking hot dudes
who are into you and only you.
It's sparked a rapid subculture where the lines between gameplay, romance and commerce are unsettlingly blurred.
I'm at a birthday event in Singapore's luxury shopping district, Orchard.
More than 100 women have gathered to celebrate the birthday of a man called Silas.
A giant digital billboard is at the heart of the festivities.
Fans have pulled their money to rent the advertising space and play a birthday video dedicated to him.