Bright yellow polka-dotted dress. Oversized black glasses. Big science-teacher energy.
For many young Singaporeans, Ms Kong Man Jing (Science’18), better known as BioGirl MJ, is the face of Just Keep Thinking, the homegrown science communication platform she co-founded with her partner Raye Ng in 2019.
In her words, she has never thought she would “become a content creator.” Yet what began as a fun side project is now a local go-to channel for entertaining and distinctly local science content.
We catch up with the ever-bubbly Ms Kong to talk about curiosity, content creation, and science-y stuff.
At what point did Kong Man Jing realise she had been taken over by BioGirl MJ?
I don’t think there was any taking over! Usually, people are shocked that I’m the same in real life. BioGirl is MJ, and MJ is BioGirl!
You started out as a science teacher. Was it scary to leave a stable job and take Just Keep Thinking full-time?
We started the channel quite randomly. Raye filmed me while I was talking about corals in Phuket, and we realised the video felt chill and vloggy. As a teacher, I found it hard to find science videos with local content. So we thought: why not make our own?
Then about over a year in, we started getting client projects. Then we hit 100,000 followers on Facebook. That was when I thought, ‘Wow! This could be a career!” It was scary to leave a job I enjoyed, but social media trends come and go. If you don’t strike while the iron is hot, there may not be another chance.
In a world of quick takes, hot takes and “I saw it on TikTok, so it must be true” takes, what does Just Keep Thinking stand for?
We want to share information in an entertaining way and let people make their own judgments and be a little bit more critical.
But the vibe is more like a friend sharing something with you, not, “Hey, you are destroying earth! Stop doing this!” The nature community in Singapore was very small when we started so we just wanted to get more people interested so they start thinking about the environment.
Did NUS shape that instinct to question, probe and stay curious?
Yes! I majored in Life Sciences. Learning about hypotheses and experiment design made me realise that there are soooo many different factors that can affect an outcome!
Interacting with different people at NUS helped too. There were those with very strong views and those who were open to different opinions. That helped me understand what kind of communicator I wanted to be: objective, open and not preachy.
Was the BioGirl MJ look carefully engineered, or did the science teacher simply discover colour theory and run with it?
Hahaha! At first, I was just wearing whatever clothes I had. Then we realised I just looked like anyone else. So we decided we needed a look.
The specs came because they felt nerdy. They don’t actually have lenses — they are a prop. The yellow polka dotted dress happened because I wore one in a video, liked the colour, and realised it matched our logo. Yellow gives positive energy. Also, everyone in nature was wearing blue and green, so I thought: let’s not do that. Let’s go yellooooow!
If Singapore’s wildlife had a group chat, who would be the drama queen, the lurker and the one forwarding fake news?
Drama queen would be the Asian Koel for sure. It keeps screaming, and if you scream at it, it screams even more!
The lurker would be the colugo. It’s just on the tree, and people walk past without even noticing it.
The reef octopus would be the fake news guy. They have a very cheeky kind of personality. They suddenly appear, then disappear, then reappear, then change colours.
If you had to design a BioGirl MJ module for NUS students, what would it be called?
Science Communication in the Digital Era … maybe?
First assignment would be to analyse different climate change videos. Why did one video do better than another? Is it the content, the creator, the market, the likes, the shares, the views? There is a lot to learn just by watching how other people communicate.
Kids love your channel. If they were allowed to watch only one BioGirl MJ video before dinner, which one should it be — and will it ruin their appetite in the best possible way?
The food videos for sure. Like how I tested making shapes from dalgona candy inspired by the Squid Game series. Or recreate “meat” using vegetables and fruits!
You started with videos and have moved on to programmes, partnerships and publishing. The team has also grown to more than 20 people. What does success mean to you now?
Follower count definitely is important, because if it doesn’t grow, it means our content is no longer fresh.
But what makes me happy are the messages we get from followers, telling us how much they have learnt. Some students have gone on to study environmental biology. These stories are very close to my heart.
And there are kids who cosplayed as Biogirl MJ for school events. What a big honour!
What is next for Just Keep Thinking?
Honestly, I don’t really know. We hope to grow bigger. We are building up our programmes team, exploring more Southeast Asian content and working on animation.
For now, we just keep experimenting — very science-y, right?
