SINGAPORE: A “Chindonesian” influencer is ruffling a few feathers by joking about giving away money to “poor” Singaporeans in Singapore.
He does it with such a straight face that it has been hard for some to tell whether the videos he upload on social media should be taken seriously.
For example, Bobby Saputra, who goes by @supercoolben10 on TikTok, recently said in a video that he was doing “some charity in Singapore.”
In it, he goes over to two young men at Bedok Reservoir to give them money and designer watches so they can move to Indonesia one day.
@supercoolben10 Charity for Singapore
Mr Saputra saying that Singaporeans are “the largest minority in Southeast Asia,” who are “actually very poor,” should have been a dead giveaway that what he was doing was in jest and that the two young men he wanted to give “a better start in life to” were most likely in on the joke.
After all, there must be a reason why Crazy Rich Asians is set in Singapore, right?
However, when the video was shared on the Complaint Singapore Facebook group, neither the Facebook user who shared the video nor the netizens were so sure.
“Singaporeans complaining about food prices $ Indonesians pitying Singaporeans being poor. Serve us right. See his videos always saying Singaporeans very poor so he pities them,” reads the caption.
One commenter called him a liar, while another said it would be better for Mr Saputra to give money to his own “poverty-stricken people.” Yet another said he was crazy to compare “1st world and 2nd or 3rd world” countries.
Some, however, got the joke and asked that he bless them with cash and Rolex watches too. A commenter even jokingly asked if he was still in Singapore so he could benefit from his “charity” as well.
Mr Saputra, the son of Indonesian businessman William Saputra, is the chef, entrepreneur and food blogger behind the @supercoolben YouTube channel.
He often jokes about life as a single billionaire in Indonesia, giving away designer clothes, bags, and jewellery, his dad having “unlimited money,” and a robotic toilet from Japan that “judges” him.
In a recent video, he joked about buying yet another designer watch in Singapore “to help boost the economy.”
In it, he pretends to hand over a huge pile of cash to the saleswoman at a watch store, telling he to keep the change so she can “feed some starving children in Singapore.”
@supercoolben10 Buying a watch in Singapore charity @watchexchangesg
/TISG