Feb 24, after Russia invaded Ukraine, Nigel Ng, the Malaysian comedian better known as “Uncle Roger” tweeted a joke about taking his show to Ukraine, followed by the crying-tears-of-joy emoji.
However, he fell short of an actual apology, merely tweeting, “Oops! Sometimes what’s funny in your head isn’t that funny in real life.”
This sparked a fresh set of criticism from commenters, who expressed disappointment with the comedian.
Many netizens posted footage of the conflict, showing how Ukrainians are suffering because of it.
Others RT’d tweets from bombed areas, asking the comic, “Is this still funny?”
“The least you could do is apologise,” one netizen told him.
One commenter pointed out that he’s becoming “like those Chinese middle-aged guys you parody.”
A Singaporean woman whose Ukrainian boyfriend wrote, “I wished u apologised instead of making a joke out of another joke, because he right now is under cover, with his parents and an elderly grandma, trying to survive this war.”
Some seemed genuinely surprised that Ng did not apologise, since he has done so before, over an issue that concerned China.
And then, when one would think he couldn’t put his foot into it any deeper, he ended up doing just that.
One commenter wrote, “yea uncle…just be careful and no next time okay?”
The comedian answered, “There definitely will be a next time. If you listen to @haiyaapod you know I say some crazy shit 😂”
True to internet form, this set off another pile on from commenters.
After much bashing from netizens, Ng later deleted the tweet.
The Malaysia-born and London-based stand-up comedian burst into everyone’s consciousness at the beginning of the pandemic when his alter ego, the orange-shirt clad Uncle Roger was appalled at the way Hersha Patel cooked egg-fried rice on BBC Food.
He later ended up on BBC with Ms Patel, and later cheerfully took aim even at celebrity chefs such as Gordon Ramsay, Jamie Oliver and Rachael Ray on other reaction videos.
https://theindependent.sg/haiyaaa-comedian-nigel-ng-aka-uncle-roger-comes-to-singapore-niece-nephew-better-brush-up-on-your-egg-fried-rice-cooking/