The 34-year-old founder of Sugarbook, Darren Chan was apprehended on Feb 17 at a condominium in Kuala Lumpur. The sugar daddy and sugar baby dating platforms have been investigated for prostitution and the improper use of network services.
Like what its tagline says, ” When Romance meets Finance”. A Sugar Relationship is where both parties define what they want in a relationship in exchange for financial support.
Most times this consists of a Male/Female who is eligible for financial backing in exchange for love and companionship.
Sugarbook claimed they have over 400,000 active members consisting of 220,000 sugar babies, 180,000 sugar daddies, and 6,000 sugar mummies in Malaysia. Since January, they recorded a spike of 40% increase in students registering as “sugar babies”.
It also revealed that some 12,705 students from 10 institutions of higher learning in the Klang Valley, including two public universities, are currently registered with the platform.
Additionally, the data from the world’s largest sugar dating site, SeekingArrangement, shows that they have over 84,000 active Malaysian sugar babies on their platform.
Both dating platforms cited an economic downturn in Malaysia, heavy student loan debts, high cost of living, and rising university tuition fees as some of the reasons among university students to seek sugar daddies.
According to the data, the average age of sugar daddies in Malaysia is 35 with an average monthly income of RM12,500. While the sugar babies are an average of 23 years old, who often seek a monthly allowance of RM2,500 from their affluent “daddy”.
The platform was under fire by the religious affairs minister, saying it’s not right and violated the laws including Syariah law. Ministry of higher education also slammed the app. Following that, the app was banned on Feb 15.
However, according to Malay Mail, Sugarbook launched an alternative web address at sucrebook.com one day after access blocked for the platform. Sucre is French for sugar.
Let’s also hear out what’s the netizens say:
▼ Some wonder why the government took speedy action to ban Sugarbook. But wonder why can’t they act at the same speed on other matters like sexual harassment incidents lately, child marriages, or even Covid.
▼ ” You all think VIP VIP dato dato will use Sugarbook, they don’t even need the app”
▼ Some also praised PDRM for their speedy act in arresting the founder of the dating app.
Info via Twitter | Malay Mail | Malay Mail 1 | Sugarbook | NST