In the ten countries of ASEAN, more people watch YouTube than television, and the most popular YouTubers—those who have won the competition for attention—have greater influence than anyone else. In order to better understand ASEAN countries, we need to look at some of the leading YouTubers from the region.
Uncle Roger(channel name: mrnigelng) is arguably one of the most famous Asian guys in the world. Born in Malaysia, he is a comedian with 7.41 million subscribers.
In his videos, Uncle Roger uses an exaggerated Chinese accent to portray a caricatured version of an Asian man. He uses this character to comedic effect, mainly poking fun at Western versions of Asian cuisine. Loved throughout the world, he is known as “Roger Samchon” in Korea.
Pimrypie(channel name: พิมรี่พาย) is a Thai YouTuber with 6.28 million subscribers. She also has many followers on Facebook and Instagram. Pimrypie boasts such high views by covering almost all of YouTube’s popular categories, such as food, beauty, and music video covers.
One video, in particular, highlights her outstanding influence. In a music video that covered the song and dance of the Korean girl-group Girls’ Generation, one of the members, Hyoyeon, appeared herself. Other Thai YouTubers also posted a lot of reaction videos to this cover, reflecting the level of popularity she enjoys in Thailand. The comments on Pimrypie’s videos are mainly in Thai, but you can also see comments written in languages from around the world, including English.
It is especially interesting to see Korean YouTubers garnering attention for creating content that connects South Korea and ASEAN member states.
Korea Reomit is a channel operated by a Korean YouTuber who grew up in Indonesia that has 5.26million subscribers.
Korea Reomit’s channel has many videos that help viewers understand Korea. A 2019 video of him accompanying Indonesian President Joko Widodo on his trip to Korea reached 8.89 million views, and a 2020 video that reported how Indonesian sailors who were exploited and killed on Chinese fishing boats were receiving help in South Korea has garnered over 8.7 million views.
The reason the Korea Reomit channel is so popular in Indonesia is because of his native language skills and his understanding of local culture. What’s more, the genuine and humble attitude of the YouTuber is also an important element.
Blimey is a YouTube channel with over 849,000 subscribers, run by three Korean women. They got started with a video of themselves eating Malaysian cup noodles that wentviral, and later, their reactions and covers to Malaysian music videos also became popular.
As their popularity rose in Malaysia, they began collaborating with famous celebrities. Recently, they have been up loading a lot of variety shows featuring popular actors traveling in Korea. Now, Blimey has rebranded itself as a media startup, and focuses on creating web-based mobile entertainment aimed at ASEAN countries, such as Malaysia.
With many individuals—especially those under thirty years old—spending more time watching YouTube than TV shows, it appears that social media is starting to replace, not complement, traditional visual media. This is why we must pay attention to the influence of YouTubers based in Southeast Asia. In this regard, perhaps the YouTubers who are beloved in Korea and ASEAN will serve as the bridgeheads that introduce and help us understand each other’s cultures.
KOREA FOUNDATION
