About

Hello stranger. This is wishcrys.com, the internet home of Professor Crystal Abidin aka wishcrys. Following the convention of Malay names, I go by ‘Prof Crystal’ rather than ‘Prof Abidin’. I am an anthropologist and ethnographer of internet cultures, focusing especially on influencer cultures, online visibility, and social media pop cultures, mostly in the Asia Pacific region. I have an international reputation of being a world-leading expert on Influencer cultures, and am an accomplished science communicator with research bridging academia, industry, and the public.

I grew up in Singapore, used to work in Sweden, and now live in Perth, Western Australia. I have developed several key ideas & concepts in digital cultures, I curate a repository of multimedia resources to communicate my research to the general public, and I used to produce case studies on Influencers and internet culture. This blog also archives my journey and reflections as a once-upon-a-time early career researcher.

I work as Professor of Internet Studies at Curtin University; Director of the Influencer Ethnography Research Lab; Associate Investigator at the Centre of Excellence for the Digital Child; Research Professor at the Korea Research & Engagement Centre; and Programme Lead of Social Media Pop Cultures at the Centre for Culture and Technology. I am also the Founder of the TikTok Cultures Research Network; Affiliate Researcher with the Media Management and Transformation Centre at Jönköping University. I was formally Editor-in-Chief of Media International Australia.

I serve on several advisory boards, working groups, and consulting projects for major tech companies and think-tanks, including TikTok’s Content and Safety Advisory Council (SAC) for the AUNZ markets, Instagram’s Content Ranking and Recommendations working group for content policy, Australian Influencer Marketing Council‘s working group on child influencer policies in Australia, Trust & Safety Foundation’s Global Majority Research Committee (GMRC) research coalition, the International Panel on the Information Environment, and the Telstra Foundation’s Technology & Wellbeing Roundtable. I have also served as consultant on social media policies for governments in Australia, France, Singapore, and the UK.

I have published extensively, including 5 authored books (+3 forthcoming), 4 edited books (+3 forthcoming), 16 journal special issues, and over 250 articles and chapters on various aspects on internet celebrity and vernacular internet cultures. I have been indexed in several high citation databases: In 2025 I was indexed on the Stanford/Elsevier Top 2% Scientists List for the 4th consecutive year, ranking 21/15409 or top 0.13% in the subfield of communications and new media worldwide (top 0.27% in 2024, 0.44% in 2023, 1.08% in 2022). In 2025 I was named the top researcher in the country in the field of Communication by The Australian based on citations in the top 20 journals in the field in the last 5 years, and in 2021 I was named the top 40 young researchers by The Australian based on annualised h-index. In Q3 2025, my Field Weighted Citation Index (FWCI) is 5.71, my Category Normalised Citation Impact (CNCI) is 15.06, my h-index is 42, and my i10-index is 78.

My research has won international accolades, with notable awards including WA Young Tall Poppy Science Award, The Australian Top 40 Early Career Researchers, ABC TOP 5 Humanities Fellow, ICA Pop Comm Early Career Scholar Prize, Forbes 30 Under 30 Asia, and Pacific Standard 30 Top Thinkers Under 30. I was previously Australian Research Council (ARC) Discovery Early Career Researcher Award (DECRA) Fellow (Australia), Isaac Manasseh Meyer Fellow (Singapore), and Handelsrådet Research Fellow (Sweden). I am also a prolific keynote speaker.

I serve on the Editorial Boards for Cambridge Journal of Anthropology; Celebrity Studies; Cultural Science Journal; Convergence; Global Media and China; Journal of Computer Mediated Communication; Social Media + Society; and Television & New Media, as well as several book series for Bloomsbury. I was previously elected to serve two terms on the Executive Committee for the Association of Internet Researchers.

WHAT’S HAPPENING NOW?

At present, I am focused on completing 6 books to be released in 2026 and growing the Influencer Ethnography Research Lab (IERLab).

In Q4 2025 I will be speaking at the TikTok Global Advisory Council Summit in Singapore, the TikTok 2025 APAC Safety Summit in Seoul, and the Australian & Aotearoa New Zealand Communication Association (AANZCA) Conference in Sunshine Coast/online.

Please note that my values for 2025 are to be gentle, soft, quiet, and slow, and as such I am selective with commitments and invitations. I have recently returned from parental leave and am wading through my terrifying inbox.

ET CETERA

Before academia, I dreamt of being a full-time percussionist and trained in a few orchestras. I play the marimba and glockenspiel at home (RIP my keyboard and violin and drums), and am secretly strategizing over how to acquire a vibraphone. Deep inside, I still believe that one day in the future I will return to my first love and grow old playing percussion with other silver-haired people. I would be content to grow wise and cool like Ahmah and Bob.

I held several casual jobs in various industries to support myself through grad school, with the most interesting being my role as a 24/7 library officer (think being wide awake at 0400hrs in the morning to keep a building in order) with some incredibly nocturnal co-workers.

I love penguins and Pusheen and chocolate. And my little humans.

BEEP

Email>> crystalabidin[at]gmail[dot]com

Postal mail>> MCASI, Building 208, Curtin University, GPO Box U1987, WA6845, Australia

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