Nigel Ng AKA ‘Uncle Roger’ Sparks Controversy By Deleting Vid Filmed With Anti-Chinese Government Food YouTuber
Nigel's apology on Weibo has received a positive response, while those on Twitter are accusing him of pandering to China.
Fuiyoh... Malaysian comedian Nigel Ng, who is best known as his orange polo tee clad alter ego Uncle Roger, has come under fire from some netizens for deleting a video he shot with Mike Chen, an American food personality who has criticised the Chinese government on multiple occasions.
Mike is known for being very critical of the Chinese government, and has voiced out against their human rights violations in Hongkong and for their treatment of the the Uighur Muslim minority in China. He has also called for his followers to sign petitions to “end the CCP”, and has included hashtags such as #CCP_is_terrorist on his Twitter account.
Recently, Nigel shot a video with Mike, in which they reviewed another content producer making what they called the “ugliest dumpling ever”. The video made no mention of politics.
However, Nigel decided to delete the video before posting an apology on Weibo on January 12.
In the statement, he wrote: “It has come to my understanding that this video has made a bad social impact. My staff and I would like to express our sincerest apologies to everyone. Considering the seriousness of this issue and the negative impact of the video itself, we discussed internally and decided to take it down from all platforms (…)During the process of working with the content-creator, I wasn't aware of his political thoughts and his past incorrect remarks about China. This is my negligence, and I will be more careful when I make content in the future.”
He ended his apology with, “I hope you can give Uncle Roger, who has just entered China, a chance to improve!”
Nigle has been praised by Chinese netizens for “reacting even before he got criticised”, but some have called for him to upload the apology in video form to prove his sincerity.
On the other hand, those on Twitter have decried Nigel’s actions, with the bulk of them criticising Nigel for “bowing to the CCP” and “doing things against his conscience for money”.
Mike has also reacted to the saga, writing: “They will use their soft power to get people to self-censor because they are afraid of losing business in China or offending Chinese people. And I think that’s what happened here. I started my YouTube channel to share my love of Chinese culture with the world, I love China, and I love Chinese people. They are my people. The CCP however is not China and certainly should not be equated to the Chinese people.”
Nigel, who shot to fame last year after his scathing video review of a British personality’s technique on how to make fried rice went viral, has been churning out plenty of food-related content for his 3.19mil subscribers on YouTube.
Photos: Nigel Ng's YouTube, Nigel Ng's Weibo, Mike Chen's Twitter