Shawn Shown

Thanks to an off-topic post about Shawn Yao, traffic on my month-old blog about the mobile industry has surged.

On a different blog, I lamented the fact that while the February issue of Rogue Magazine has sold out, very few people have actually seen or read the issue--which is a shame because Rogue is more read-worthy than FHM, Maxim, or Uno magazine. In my book anyway, Rogue is better written, not to mention better laid out.

Fortunately, Rogue's Creative/Art Director, Miguel Mari, perhaps scouring the Net for Shawn-related buzz, read my comment and replied:

 

While verifying the identity of the respondent--that it was indeed Rogue's Art Director--is not straightforward (I would have to contact the blog owner or ask a friend of a friend of Miguel), this is just a blog; my blog, not NY Times, where facts must be validated.

So without further ado--and thanks to OCR (optical character recognition, which saved me the trouble of retyping the article) software ReadIris 11--I now repost the article that sold out Rogue Magazine's February 2008 issue.

 

On Your Knees

We open the Year of the Rat with an official coming-out party for Shawn Yao, who, for years, has merely flitted in and out of our awareness as a reluctant model, cult TV personality, and idealistic photographer. After her Rogue debut, as QUARK HENARES will attest, it may just be impossible to expunge her from your consciousness now.

Shawn Yao starts fights.
  It was one of the first things she did this year, actually. At Cuisine, in the Fort. Someone grabbed her ass. And it wasn't a brush against the ass, mind you. It was a full on grab + squeeze. This I know because she demonstrated it using my own ass as we spoke. I tried to keep a straight face the whole time, I really did. So she turns around and the guy says, "So I grabbed your ass, so fucking what?" An acquaintance, with neither signal nor warning, then full-on pounces on the guy, clocking repeatedly. Shawn walks out on the pandemonium as someone screams after her, "Thank you! He did that to me too!"

Shawn Yao used to shoot children.
  This was her first job: a photographer at a children's photo studio which will remain unnamed, because neither I nor she likes mentioning it. She started when she was in college. "I did that because--honestly, honestly, honestly--it was the only place that offered a part time job aside from Seattle's Best and Starbucks. I wanted to try to be a working student. I wanted to try to be more 'Western.' Thought it would be character building, and it really was." She had her dad cut her allowance, which he partially did, to half the original amount. "I've never been so rich in my entire life," she says with an ironic smile that also manages to display pride in her own resourcefulness. These days, Shawn runs her own photography studio, Triptych, along with two other partners. "We put up a studio of our own, so we force ourselves to get our asses to work. It's like a forced commitment," she explains. Before that, she was living a hand-to-mouth existence, only taking on jobs when she needed the money. "Late last year, we decided to just stand up, go and get it, and it was good-one step towards maturity and a sense of responsibility."

Shawn Yao doesn't care if you look like shit as long as it's the truth.
  Shawn adopts the purist's philosophy of photography. She prefers reallocations, natural lighting, and no post· production manipulation whatsoever. "I'm a realist. I don't like altering pictures. You kind of just lose a huge essence. You see a billboard, and there're absolutely no lines in a smiling face. I want to preserve a memory or scene forever, and if you have a zit that day then malas ka na lang. My favorite subjects are real people and random inanimate objects." As opposed to product shots and modeling shoots? "Yeah, I do that too. Oh, fuck. I'm a sellout."

Shawn Yao is now a cosplayer fantasy girl.
  Especially since she took on her role as "Fun Press" correspondent in the Animax program Mad Mad Fun, where she has garnered nearly as much attention as its main host. "Before that, I never talked on cam, ever," she shares even though she has played various filmic roles such as a kidnapped schoolgirl for a short film, a frustrated writer for a Sugarfree music video, and a haunted pet owner for The Spaceflower Show's "Salawikain" music video. "The experience was mortifying, but humiliating yourself gets easier every single time. I was so proud because, in one of our last shoots, two hours lang, tapos na kami." One of her most memorable experiences was discovering what cosplay was all about for a Gaming conference she covered. "It was the most amazing thing. They never broke character. If you made them laugh, they had to be like their characters. It's method acting at its best, man," These days, cosplayers ask for her autograph all the time. The picture of her in Kinbaku, a Japanese-style bondage characterized by intricately patterned binding, is Rogue's personal gift to them.

Shawn Yao is a guy.
  "I really, really am," she says, trying her best to convince me as she espies her reflection in a glass window and primps. She doesn't need to.
  "I'm terrified of commitment. I have a very short attention span. I wear white five out of seven days a week, and the other days I wear black ... because it's easy to match. I refuse to spend more than fifteen minutes deciding on an outfit. Such a waste of time."
  "Oh. And I like checking out hot girls. I can't help it." Still not convinced.

Shawn Yao is eating her own foot.
  "What was the photo shoot like?" I ask.
  "It was-basta it was weird." "Wait. Let me download it."
  As I open my laptop, Shawn gets a call from a guy named Alexis,
  a film critic who sleeps watching blockbusters like Troy but watches Lav Diaz's l0-hour opuses repeatedly. This particular superhuman ability has allowed him to fly off to different parts of the world (albeit on commercial flights). He is apparently one of her biggest fans.
  I open the e-mail and see the first picture; the one with a transparent skeleton over her half-naked body. My jaw drops, and I press my hand against my chest.
  "One second, Alexis. I think Quark is having a heart attack."

Shawn Yao is the worst model ever.
  At least she thinks she is. She professes, "I can't do a half-smile and a smile with no teeth." I ask her to try. She'd rather not, she says. "I especially hate it when they expect you to just do your thing. This Rogue shoot super-worked out for me because Juan [Caguic1a, the photographer] told me to do very specific things."

Of course, Juan Caguicla would do that. His reputation as an exacting craftsman is veritably fascist; his attention to certain nuances almost fetishistic.

But it worked. The images show Shawn at her most vulnerable and most powerful. Caguicla says it best: "I liked the fact that she was open enough to ideas that would otherwise fall on dead ears or elicit a slap in the face."

It had been in the works for some time now-Shawn and Juan had intermittently discussed the shoot for around a year. The two photographers eventually became close enough friends to brainstorm for real. "We were talking for hours about random stuff, and I decided to lie on my knee. Juan asked what the hell I was doing, and I said my back hurt-and to alleviate the pain-I like to lie on my knee. That started it all. We shot right after."

Shawn Yao takes pleasure in your pain.
"I like things that make me feel depressed because they somehow make me feel better about life," she shares, rather confusingly. Apparently, the more disturbing, depressing, and morbid things are-the happier she is. She talks about how much she loves Mark Romanek's video for Nine Inch Nails's "Closer," how she absolutely adores Johnny Cash, and how Fight Club left a lasting impression on her. During the interview, she clutches a copy of F. Sionil Jose's Dusk. "He's the only Filipino writer I follow. He captures the Filipino diaspora so well," she says. "Naks, diaspora," she chuckles derisively, with a-wait a minute-was that a half-smile with no teeth?

Shawn Yao is Shawn Yao.
And she is famous for being so. The name is one I always used
to hear for no apparent reason. She's not a model, she's not an actress, and, until recently, she wasn't even a demi-celebrity. People just like tossing her name around, and it always has to be the full name, like "Rico Blanco" or "Anne Curtis." It's almost like a badge of honor to know her or know ofher.
  Google her and the first result that pops up is a website called Crush ng Bayan. It's as good a description of her as you'll find, actually. Graduates (and current students) of UA&P still mention her name in hushed tones-and fathers still clamor for her services to photograph their children even if she hasn't worked in the aforementioned children's portrait studio for nearly a year.

She excuses herself from the interview. It's her turn to sing­ New Order's "Bizarre Love Triangle"-at the live-band karaoke joint we're in. Everyone stops whatever they're doing, transfixed by Shawn Yao. It seems like it's a performance that will leave her with a fresh batch of fans who will, soon enough, drop her name like a badge of honor.

Oh, yeah. You were only interested in the pictures. Typical. Here.