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#trending: Cringey or creative? NDP segment of ‘aunties’ dancing to K-pop song draws mixed reviews

SINGAPORE — A video clip showing a group of older women dancing to a K-pop song as part of rehearsals for this year’s National Day Parade (NDP) show is making the rounds on social media and getting mixed reviews from online users.

<span><span><span><span><span><span><span>A TikTok video showing a group of older women dancing to a K-pop song as part of rehearsals for the National Day Parade show is getting mixed reviews online.</span></span></span></span></span></span></span>
A TikTok video showing a group of older women dancing to a K-pop song as part of rehearsals for the National Day Parade show is getting mixed reviews online.
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SINGAPORE — A video clip showing a group of older women dancing to a K-pop song as part of rehearsals for this year’s National Day Parade (NDP) show is making the rounds on social media and getting mixed reviews from online users.

The roughly one-minute-long recording of the performance taken during one of the rehearsal shows was uploaded by TikTok user “jxddd95” on Monday (July 18).

In just a few days, it has amassed more than 170,000 views and 10,500 likes. It has since been shared by other social media users on Facebook, Twitter and the HardwareZone forum.

The leaked video of the NDP rehearsals features six older women, known here colloquially as "aunties", crashing in on a group of younger females dancing to the song Boombayah by K-pop girl group BlackPink, at a void deck of a public housing block.

One of the women then asks the group to continue playing the song because the women “want to dance”.

The audience can be heard laughing and cheering as the aunties become transformed, wearing flashy outfits and busting out K-pop-inspired moves with much gusto.

The entire sequence was played on the jumbo screen of The Float@Marina Bay where this year’s NDP will be held on Aug 9.

@jxddd95 Aunties dance cover to BlackPink @ this year’s NDP 😅 / Watch till the end ! #blackpink #sg #ndp2022 #dancecover #sgtiktok #boombayah ♬ original sound - Jeddd

Sharing the clip on a HardwareZone forum thread on Monday, user “JonWeak” wrote: “Wonder who thought of this. Must be a boomer. (Singapore) really no idea and must do this? It's funny but (very) CRINGE.”

Baby boomers are the generation born roughly between 1946 and 1964, and often regarded by younger people as somewhat out of touch.

Most others leaving some 150 comments on the thread so far echoed similar views. One HardwareZone user wrote: “The organisers must be a bunch of boomers and trying to relate to the younger crowd but end up is damn cringe.”

Some criticised the use of a foreign song during a national event. One asked what BlackPink has to do with NDP.

"Really anyhow inject foreign stuff in, how to feel patriotic?” one user chided. Another wrote: “So much for trying to cultivate national identity.”

Another comment asking why the performers were dancing to a song by non-Singaporeans was met with a scathing response: “We got actual good local artists' songs, meh?”

A user with the handle “Scrabby” noted that performing to songs by foreign artistes during NDP is nothing new and shared a video snippet from the National Archives of Singapore of the parade in 1985.

In one of the segments, Mount Vernon Secondary School students in red-and-white tracksuits can be seen dancing to a live band rendition of Beat It, by the since deceased American pop star Michael Jackson.

Some online users also compared the performance to the Fun Pack Song of NDP 2011, which used modified lyrics of Bad Romance, a song by American artiste Lady Gaga, to introduce the contents of the parade’s goodie bag that year.

The song was criticised harshly by the general public and had to be pulled temporarily from the performance line-up because the Ministry of Defence had not secured the rights to modify the song lyrics.

A handful of HardwareZone users, however, did come to the defence of the aunties, reminding others that they will also grow old one day.

One remarked: “What’s wrong with the aunties having a bit of fun? Pretty sure they enjoyed that routine. Do you expect the aunties to be in the kitchen cooking? I thought it was decently produced. We all will grow old, too, to become old uncles and aunties. Does it mean we can’t have any fun?”

The response to the video, however, has been far more positive on TikTok. Many users have flooded the comments section of the original video with praise for the dancing sextet, calling them “cute” and the performance “one of the better parts of the show”.

One user wrote: “This auntie part is lit. Our talented veterans. Kudos to NDP team creativity!”

Another commented: “Normally, I will cringe when local productions use such famous songs. But this time, I 100% support! Go, ah ma!”

Related topics

National Day women dance Black Pink Trending TikTok K-pop NDP 2022

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