But it was not always like this. When MJ first started the channel – which she runs with her 32-year-old fiance and videographer, Raye Ng – she did not get any support from the science and nature community, who thought that her presentation style was not doing science any justice.

“They see me do candid videos and use brief infographics with no jargon and to them, it’s not the way science should be. So I got a lot of criticism – even my own mentor wasn’t very supportive. That was a bit hard to take. When non-nature lovers liked my channel and content because they were learning a lot, and when industries started to invite me to be on discussion panels to share about how we use social media to communicate science, that’s when they became more supportive of the channel,” she adds.

Now that she is making waves in the nature and wildlife space, MJ would like to expand her activities offline too, such as organising more workshops, planning more hands-on activities, and leading more guided tours across the island (currently, she only does intertidal tours to Changi Beach). Ultimately, she wants people to understand wildlife, and to live in harmony with it. “People want nature and greenery, but they don’t want the other things that come with it, which can’t be possible because if we want nature, we will also bring some animals closer to us. So I hope people can compromise, because we cannot protect what we don’t love, and we cannot love what we don’t know.”

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Text: Azlinda Said/HerWorld