National athlete Ng Ming Wei and dad are serious about making TikTok prank videos together

• National taekwondo exponent Ng Ming Wei asked his father to shoot a funny video with him
• They set up a new TikTok account when they saw people liked watching his father play tricks on him 
• The account, set up in late July, now has more than 2.8 million followers
• The father is now the one who is preoccupied with using the app

SINGAPORE — Around the same time when veteran TV actor Zhu Houren’s son made news for putting out a viral TikTok video with his “boomer dad”, another father-and-son pair was also getting attention on the same platform with their series of “prank” videos.

During the circuit breaker in May here when people had to stay home due to Covid-19, national taekwondo athlete Ng Ming Wei, 25, and his 52-year-old father, retiree Cedric Ng, published a video of themselves doing something comical.

One thing led to another and, before long, the duo realised that there was a “demand” for their “prank” videos and a new TikTok account, @DaddyMing, was born on July 23.

In just 23 days, it gained a million followers — something his father had definitely not expected to happen, calling it something “out of the blue”. The account now has more than 2.8 million followers.

Rewind to last April: Ming Wei, who has been based in Norway since the end of 2017, started using the video-sharing mobile application with his own account, @MingWeiRocks, which has more than 8.7 million followers to date.

He was preparing for the Olympic trials with the national taekwondo team in Norway when he had to return home after the Covid-19 outbreak struck.

Recalling how he asked his dad to film something with him during the stay-home period, he said: “At first, he was a bit reluctant, but after I asked one or two more times, he agreed to help me once.”

Their first video shows the father throwing balloons into the air and Ming Wei popping them one after another — until the father picks up a balloon filled with water, his son bursts that and ends up wetting himself.

After that, it was another video. And another. The pranks have recurring themes of them throwing water, flour or eggs at each other, with “Daddy Ming” being the prankster most of the time.

The one and only time Ming Wei tried to be the prankster backfired, with his dad getting the upper hand once again.

All the footage is filmed at home, often in their backyard.

Seeing comments from strangers — often about how the duo had made their day — keeps Daddy Ming going.

Ming Wei shares the sentiment, saying he receives messages that thanked them for making viewers laugh, “especially during this difficult period”.

In a turn of events, Daddy Ming is the brain behind most of the pranks nowadays. “I think he uses the app more frequently than me now,” Ming Wei said with a laugh.

Daddy Ming, who used to be the executive director of an electronics company, has been spending a lot of time poring through various videos on the app. He began to pick up on trends and understand what made “good” content. 

“The more (videos) you see, the more ideas will start to come in,” he explained.

Although the pair discusses ideas beforehand, each video is filmed just once. “We don’t rehearse,” Ming Wei said. “The reactions you see are all genuine.”

The best thing about making these videos? Family bonding, Daddy Ming said. “We realise that we communicate more now. Our relationship has gotten better.”

Other members of the family also help out behind the scenes sometimes for the videos, including cleaning up after filming.

Daddy Ming recalled the time his wife, a finance director of a semiconductor company, bought a cake that was going to be smashed into Ming Wei’s face for a recording. “The cake had no cream, so my wife made the cream for the cake,” he said.

During the circuit breaker, Ming Wei posted a “Stay Home, Save Lives” Covid-19 campaign video featuring his sister, an accountant, and grandmother — but he prefers not to trouble other family members to be on-camera now.

Daddy Ming is saying that other parents should consider using TikTok to connect and have fun with their children, insisting that it is not something difficult to learn.

His own friends, too, enjoy joking around with him about his videos, telling him that “they get to see another side of (him)”.

Thinking about what will happen now that they have a “fan base”, Daddy Ming admitted that it feels a little scary: “I’m still quite shy.”

Even though he said that it is “hard to say” if this will last, he will keep making videos as long as he can make people laugh.

“You want to make people happy… So you just continue to do that thing that makes people happy.”