KUALA LUMPUR — One of Malaysia's most popular content creators Jenn Chia recently captured worldwide attention with an old photo of herself that showed her husband and fellow singer-songwriter Jon Liddell standing in the background, years before the couple met.

Ms Chia, who goes by the pseudonym "So, I'm Jenn", posted a video documenting the discovery on Instagram on Dec 26 last year.

The video starts off with a photo posted by Ms Chia on her own Facebook page on Oct 10 in 2012. Ms Chia, then 21, smiles at the camera as she sits at a cafe table.

To her right, the side profile of Mr Liddell, then 22, can be seen as he stands in the background with his arms folded and a guitar case on his back.

Ms Chia writes in the video: "I'm still shaking looking at this. We were at the same place but didn't know each other existed."

The next photo, posted by photographer Calvin Alexi on Facebook on Dec 22, 2014, shows the couple posing for the camera as they sit side-by-side on an amusement park ride. This was the first time they met at a music-video shoot, as the couple has talked about in several interviews.

Finally, the video concludes with a photo from their wedding, which took place in August last year — 11 years after the first photo was taken.

Ms Chia, now 33, wrote in her Instagram caption: "We met at the right time. 

"If it was before, I don’t think the relationship would have lasted...The right person will always find you at the right time."

Agreeing, Mr Liddell commented: "So glad you didn't meet me in the first picture. We were meant to go on our own journeys.

"We met a few years later at the perfect time." 

The post has since been picked up by several international news outlets, from India to the United States and the United Kingdom, where Mr Liddell was born.

Fans and online users have responded to the heartwarming story with admiration and warmth, with many pointing to it as evidence of the "invisible string theory" in top comments on both Instagram and TikTok, where Ms Chia also posted the video a day later.

As American singer Taylor Swift alludes to in her song of the same name, the "invisible string" is a concept stemming from East Asian folklore, which posits that two people who are destined to be together are connected by an invisible "red thread of fate".

One TikTok user asked: "Where's my invisible string at right now?" 

Others shared their own similar experiences, such as Malaysian actress Lez Ann Chong who commented on Instagram: "That's crazy, isn't it! I have a photo of Nick that I took randomly at a friend's wedding before meeting him in person a few years later! Chillsss."

An American Instagram user wrote: "This is exactly what happened to my boyfriend and I as well!"

Another joked: "Not me looking at the background now in all my photos." 

Online users were also curious about when Ms Chia and Mr Liddell first found out that they had been photographed together in 2012, though neither of them have confirmed the timeline.

As Swift said: "Isn't it just too pretty to think, that all along there was some invisible string?"