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By Mihar Dias January 2026
I should declare this upfront: when it comes to cocks, seniority matters. Not in the way TikTok might interpret it, but in the old-fashioned, carbon-dated sense.
Harry Kok, for all his 200,000-strong following and his celebrity status as a puppet invented by a radio DJ, is—by any reasonable historical measurement—a younger cock.
https://www.instagram.com/harrykoksiewyok?igsh=MWlrNjB4MGRobnV1
I can claim that right without shame, irony, or HR approval. All I need to do is stand next to him.
Harry, you see, is one of those modern phenomena: part Sesame Street, part social media algorithm, part Malaysian sense of humour that thrives on saying things your mother warned you never to repeat in public.
He is felt, not reasoned with. He exists in short clips, punchlines, and selfies. Memory is not his strong suit. Which is fair enough. He was not even a glimmer in anyone’s mischievous eye when my own memories were already collecting interest.
So on a rainy afternoon, I took Harry Kok for a walk around Rex.
Credit Harry Kok (Ryan)
Rex, for those who only know it as a hip, neon-lit playground for the young and restless, was once an old cinema with sticky floors and moral ambiguity.
In 1968, as a freshie at University Malaya, dressed in sarong and pagoda T-shirt, I was dragged by seniors from Lembah Pantai bus stop all the way to Rex as part of what was politely called “orientation” and more accurately described as sanctioned bullying with cultural enrichment.
It was ridiculous. It was funny. It was unforgettable.
A year later, Rex would be etched into national memory for a far darker reason—a riot, deaths, chaos. By then, I was a few thousand miles away, spared by geography and timing.
Rex stayed frozen in my mind as a place of youth, noise, and absurdity, not tragedy.
Harry Kok, naturally, remembers none of this. How could he? He wasn’t even conceived—literally, metaphorically, or digitally. But as we walked past its reincarnated façade, memories came rushing back for me, uninvited and unpaid, like old friends who assume you still live at the same address.
Today, Rex is lively again. Young people roam in packs, phones held at chest height, scanning for vibes. It is a place where you go to see and be seen, even if you’re not entirely sure why. Money flows freely—cash changing hands for drinks and refreshments that would make any adult with a functioning pancreas pause and reconsider life choices.
Harry Kok and I posed at street corners like seasoned influencers, soaking in the atmosphere, trying to understand the fuss. Why the rush? Why the need to be here, now, documenting every sip and step? Perhaps this is what youth has always looked like—only now with better lighting and worse coffee.
After an hour of posing with Harry at corners I wouldn’t have cared to be seen at by day, let alone by night, reality intervened. A cup of cappuccino was enough to seal our newfound friendship.
No hashtags. No reels. Just caffeine and the quiet understanding that some things—like ageing, memory, and seniority among cocks—do not require explanation.
Harry may be younger, louder, and infinitely more Instagrammable. But standing next to him, I had the unfair advantage of history. And in a place like Rex, history still whispers, even when drowned out by music, laughter, and the sound of cash registers ringing like applause.
A younger cock may draw the crowd.
But an older one remembers why the stage was built in the first place.
Mihar Dias (mihardias@gmail.com) is a content creator under the Newswav Creator programme, where you get to express yourself, be a citizen journalist, and at the same time monetize your content & reach millions of users on Newswav. Log in to creator.newswav.com and become a Newswav Creator now!
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