Now, most of us will have come to accept the sad fact that Deputy Prime Minister and Co-ordinating Minister for Economic and Social Policies Tharman Shanmugaratnam will not become Prime Minister of Singapore.

But here's something not many of us might have known previously: his social media game is surprisingly strong, especially recently.

Exhibit A: a recent Facebook post he wrote about Gentle Bones, aka Joel Tan, being interviewed and featured on the BBC:

Now, praising local talent isn't something novel for DPM Tharman. He's done this quite a lot in the past, and even in the post right after this one, on filmmaker Kirsten Tan and the awesome waves she's been making overseas:

Indeed, DPM Tharman isn't the only one who does this. PM Lee, after all, praises local talent all the time, as do many of our ministers and MPs.

What caught our attention, however, was actually the fact that there were two comments on that first post that he responded to.

The first was by one Roy Lim, in which a reference was slyly made to the much-complained-about Guns N' Roses concert on February 25:

Here was his response, complete with a sticker:

He also responded to another comment from one Haokai Lek, lead guitarist of local band Sphaeras:

Here's what he said in response:

Cue epic starstruck moment —

And also a post on his own Facebook page:

Now, you might be thinking, "Ah, this is probably by his social media team of staffers." We thought so too, and so decided to ask them.

Here's what they told us:

DPM does not make Facebook posts very often, and in fact, rather infrequently. However, all of the posts and comments on DPM's Facebook page are made by DPM directly, and not by administrators. DPM also takes some of his responses to people who post comments or queries on his posts offline, by sending them a message directly instead or asking them to follow up with him by e-mail.

Since you're here how about another article:

10 things you never knew you could buy on Amazon

Watch out, paper qualifications. Real life experience is coming for you.

Top photo adapted from DPM Tharman's Facebook page; original photo by Lim Weixiang for Mothership.sg

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