He wanted to bring some joy to the overworked frontliners, and was inspired to do so after seeing pictures of a senior citizen in Penang wearing a plastic bag over his head during vaccination.

“The personnel at the vaccination centre were very cool,” he tells FMT. “They just played along, and someone even asked, ‘Why didn’t we see you earlier?’”

Kenny says he had purchased the outfit to be a “villain” while playing with his son. He initially wanted to show up dressed as Choy San Yeh, the God of Prosperity, but decided to go with the t-rex in the end.

Born and raised in Kuching, Sarawak, Kenny is used to dipping his toes in new territories. The 39-year-old, who has degrees in physics and electronic and communications engineering, lived in Western Australia for eight years before returning to Malaysia to be with his ailing father.

His father, who has since passed away, was the founder of Everrise, a popular supermarket chain in Sarawak. Kenny subsequently worked in the family business for about three years.

“I enjoyed it to a certain extent, but I didn’t see myself doing it for the rest of my life,” he reflects. “I wanted to create something of my own instead of doing something that was handed down to me, even though that seemed like the easier path.”

In the late 2000s, Kenny started blogging actively, which provided him a creative outlet while documenting his life. The blog soon took on a life of its own, leading him to win the Nuffnang Asia-Pacific Best Entertainment Blog award in 2009.

But things weren’t so glamorous off-screen. “I remember very clearly the difficult talks I had with my family members over some of the things I had posted,” he says, referring to instances when he could be uncharacteristically outspoken and even crude.

It came to a point where they wanted him to shut the blog down, but he was defiant. “This was something I had created on my own and I wanted to stick with it.”

Eventually, Kenny toned things down a little. His fans, however, noticed the difference and did not find him as interesting.

“I faced pressure from both sides. You can’t make everyone happy,” Kenny muses, adding that he found blogging to be unsustainable in the long run. “I got tired of being attacked by internet trolls. Enough was enough.”

Kenny rarely blogs these days as his priorities have changed, especially since getting married and having kids, although he maintains he hasn’t lost his lame humour. “That’s still inside me,” he says with a chuckle.

One benefit of blogging was that it has made him a more confident person. “People would recognise me on the streets, so I was forced to be more sociable and extroverted – traits that helped me when I started my own business as I had to speak out and be more dominant.”

In 2009, Kenny opened his first fitness centre in Kuching, having been inspired by the fitness culture while living in Australia.

“The first few years were very, very difficult because I did not know how to run a gym,” he recalls. “I’d never worked in a gym and I had no experience whatsoever. I just thought it would be something I would enjoy doing.”

Level Up Fitness now has 13 centres in Malaysia, the majority of them in Sarawak. “A lot of it was just trial and error. People tell you to keep trying until you get it right, but trying costs money!

“I only started making money from the third year onwards. Once I found the right formula, I was able to expand the business.”

All that hard work paid off when, in 2016, Kenny was named Emerging Entrepreneur of the Year by the Sarawak Chamber of Commerce and Industry.

Like many others, Kenny’s business hasn’t been spared by the pandemic. He tried to retain his staff for as long as possible, and even asked members to continue to pay for their memberships although the centres were closed, saying they would be able to carry the payments forward once the gyms reopened.

Many loyal customers supported him, enabling him to push through a couple more months. He is hopeful business will bounce back once the pandemic is over.

“Suicide and depression rates are high. Going for a workout can keep us sane as it helps take our minds off things,” he says.

Kenny also has advice for those who are still figuring themselves out.

“Travel after the pandemic, even if it’s just to Sabah and Sarawak. People everywhere do things differently and you could bring something new to them, or you could learn something from them and bring it back.”

Wise words indeed, especially coming from a tyrant lizard.