It’s hard for South-east Asians to talk about food without our familiar sibling rivalry and low-stakes nationalism creeping in. Who has the better nasi lemak? Who invented rendang? Where did Batik originate? In mid-2025, that discourse took a bittersweet turn. 

Affan Kurniawan was a 21-year-old Gojek rider in Jakarta, and his household’s main breadwinner, supporting his parents and two siblings. His simple dream was to save enough for land and a house in their hometown. Like so many young workers, he endured brutal conditions in the city to make that future possible. But he never got the chance. During a rally over low wages and politicians’ expenses, he was going about his delivery work when an armoured police vehicle ploughed into him. 

Affan’s death injected new urgency into an already simmering movement protesting state apathy and corruption. Even more people poured into the streets across Indonesian cities. Soon after, something unexpected began circulating online. An X user suggested that people across South-east Asia could take advantage of the regional compatibility of delivery apps like Gojek and Grab to order food for the riders and protestors on the ground, faraway across the archipelago. 

The platforms allowed users to message the riders directly. You could see their names and faces. A university student in Singapore, who might have never considered themselves an activist, could send a hot meal to a rider they would never meet, in a city they had never visited. They could send words of encouragement like “stay safe” or “from SG with love”. There was no need for grand speeches or political manifestos. Here was a tangible, intimate, and personal form of cross-border solidarity that extended beyond moral support: protecting the livelihood of riders, and feeding the protestors themselves. Those who could afford it also tipped generously, knowing that tips went directly and fully to the riders. 

Across South-east Asia, people began posting screenshots of their orders placed from hundreds of kilometers away. The hashtag #SEAblings emerged alongside them: a shorthand for South-east Asian siblings showing up for one another. Because that’s what siblings do. We bicker over small things, but we stand up for each other when it matters.

In recent years, this kind of solidarity has been building across borders, coordinated through social media platforms once dismissed as trivial distractions. This is where the story of Gen Z social media resistance—their evolving political identity, and what they reveal about the future of civic life at home—really begins.