Why Singlish is winning big on social media

SINGAPORE – Some long-time Singapore residents are showing their appreciation of Singlish on social media, drawing flocks of followers.

These foreigners, mostly permanent residents here, often post explainers for terms like “ulu” (signifying a location that is remote and hard to get to) or Singlish expressions that are baffling to outsiders, such as “meh” or “leh”. In doing so, their Instagram and TikTok clips explore their own sense of belonging and bicultural identities.

Annabeth Kim Su Ah, 25, is a South Korean permanent resident who spent her childhood here and graduated with a psychology degree from Nanyang Technological University in 2025.

She started posting bicultural videos on her @avnabxth account on Instagram and TikTok in January. Her 500-strong following on Instagram soon swelled to more than 6,000, she says.

She has a series of videos called Singlish Class 101, where she explains Singlish terms, speaking in Korean with English subtitles and everyday examples, such as “my school very ulu, so it takes me one hour to reach there”.

Kim, who runs a home business, Selah Table, where she sells butter-based spreads made with gochujang or curry, says: “For Singaporeans, I think there is something fun about seeing very familiar expressions like ‘lah’, ‘leh’ or ‘walao’ through the eyes of a Korean.

“They already know these words, so they can relate to the jokes. But, at the same time, they get to see their everyday culture from an outsider’s perspective.

“For Koreans and other non-Singaporeans, Singlish is an interesting and accessible way to learn about Singapore. The expressions are short, memorable and often funny, but they also reveal a lot about how Singaporeans communicate and interact with one another.”

She came to Singapore at age four with her family, leaving the Republic at age 14 for Cambodia before returning for university here. Her South Korean mother and Singaporean stepfather work as missionaries in Cambodia, where Kim, an only child, grew up in tight-knit Korean church and school communities.

She is rooted in Korean culture even though she has never lived for long in her birth country, she says.

“Singapore is like my second home, but my identity is Korean. More than your primary school years, your identity forms more during your teenage years,” adds Kim, who is married to a 26-year-old South Korean.

“I’ve come to realise that where you live is not as important as whom you’re surrounded with. Where my husband is, is my home. I also have friends I love in Singapore and South Korea.”

Singlish efficiency

Jonathan Reule, 38, is an author of books for children and young adults, as well as a content creator and community engagement professional.

The American permanent resident makes TikTok and Instagram videos about Singlish and Singapore culture. He is married to a 42-year-old Singaporean digital designer and entrepreneur, and they have a 12-year-old son.

Reule, who has lived in Singapore for 13 years, started posting Singlish content in 2025.

An initial post involved him randomly talking to his cat by lip-syncing to Singapore internet personality Zhen Zhen’s popular, stream-of-consciousness style of Singlish: “Today, I half-day leave, please stop asking… why you never work, why you never work.”

He got 19,000 likes on TikTok.

Reule, who hails from North Carolina in the United States, says: “I didn’t realise how complex it was to talk like Zhen Zhen. It gave me more of an appreciation of Singlish.”

His repertoire has short videos showcasing “Southern Jon’s Singlish word of the day”. Involving puns, word play and accents, they are affectionate, cross-cultural riffs.

One video has a skit about the term “jelak”. The Malay word denotes a sense of over-saturation and uncomfortable excess, especially after eating food that is too rich.

In the skit, Reule presents biscuits and gravy, a Southern American speciality, to his son. Pronouncing the Singlish word “jer-lack”, rather than its correct “jer-lark”, he asks his son: “Jelak it?” (Do you like it?). The boy finds it too greasy.

Reule says: “I think Singlish is quite efficient and fun. As a writer, I love words and it’s a specific, streamlined way of describing the world.

“I use some Singlish words more confidently now, and feel that I can keep up with the conversation better. I wanted to be more integrated in a way so that I don’t hamper the flow of the conversation and everybody can have a good time, rather than have to stop for Jon.”

He is so in tune with Singlish that he sometimes uses it unconsciously. On a trip to Los Angeles in 2025, he was buying doughnuts and the vendor asked if he wanted a bag.

“I said, ‘no need’, and he paused for a second. Then I said, ‘No, thank you’,” recalls Reule.

Taking pride in Singlish

Brian Lee, an associate professor at Singapore University of Social Sciences, who heads its communication studies programme, says the popularity of such videos stems from their collaborative energy and Singaporeans’ pride in their heritage.

How Singlish incorporates elements from Hokkien, Malay, Tamil and other languages in its “grammatical structures and pragmatic expressions (like lah, leh and sia) make it a powerful marker of in-group solidarity”, he says.

“When someone highlights the quirks of Singlish, it’s not just about words – it’s about identity. Singlish is how we talk to our friends, our family, our hawker centre uncle. It’s warm, it’s familiar and it’s uniquely ours,” Lee adds.

“So when a non-Singaporean creator makes a video contrasting ‘proper’ English with Singlish, it’s like they’re saying, ‘I see you and I think your way of speaking is cool.’

“There are thousands of foreign creators out there, but how many can speak Singlish convincingly? It’s a clever way to stand out while also showing cultural respect. When done right, it’s a win-win.”

Lee says: “I think there’s a sense of pride involved. For years, Singlish was looked down upon – remember the Speak Good English Movement? So when a foreigner comes along and celebrates it, it feels like vindication.”

He notes that Singaporean viewers do not only watch such videos, but they also add corrections, suggestions and their own examples. “Viewers feel a sense of ownership over the content, like they’re co-creating it with these foreign content creators. That’s a powerful dynamic.”

The “heartwarming and organic” phenomenon is a way to enjoy different cultures at a time rife with political and social challenges worldwide.

“In a world where so much online content is divisive, here’s something that’s bringing people together across cultures,” he says. “I think this is part of a bigger global trend where local dialects and vernaculars are being celebrated rather than suppressed.”

The sounds of Singlish

New Zealander Angel Tao, 21, started posting publicly online on @angeldoestuff early in 2026.

She was on an exchange programme with Zhejiang University in Hangzhou, China, from February to July, followed by a two-month work internship in Singapore. The undergraduate at the University of Melbourne in Australia, who is pursuing a degree in commerce, left Singapore in September.

“I was exploring how people would react if I put my face on the internet. Everything that does well on my account is about cultural observations,” says Tao, who is ethnically Chinese.

An Instagram reel showing the fast pace of a landscaping project at her university in China, where workers laid patches of greenery down “like Minecraft”, has 8.2 million views.

Another reel, about the Singlish she picked up from the Singaporeans she met on exchange, has one million views. It consists entirely of her saying random phrases like “why you liddat, one?”, “ya lor”, “you think I so free, meh?” and “walao eh, the children so noisy, sia”.

Tao, who has more than 17,000 followers on Instagram, says she gained more than 900 followers from Singapore from the reel.

She finds the cultural mix in Singlish fascinating, though its intonations took her a while to figure out, with the help of her friends.

“Even the texting is completely different. My friends would add the ‘meh’ and ‘sia’. I asked, why do you guys keep texting ‘sia’ in the group chat?” she says. Singlish expressions like “abuden” – a response akin to “duh” used to confront flagrantly obvious questions like ‘Is it raining now?’ – were mystifying to her.

Her parents, who emigrated from Wuxi in China to Auckland, where she was born, have always spoken to her only in Mandarin, so she is fluent in it as well as English.

On a trip to Singapore in 2026, before her sojourn in China, she was shocked when she realised people around her were mixing Mandarin and English in their speech, which she had never done.

She finds other cultural differences between herself and Singaporeans amusing, especially their economical use of language at economy rice stalls.

During her internship at a performance marketing firm earlier in 2026, lunch time at a local caifan hawker stall would see her ordering food by naming the dish in full, like “fanqie chaodan” (tomato and eggs in Mandarin) and “hong shao rou” (braised pork).

Her colleagues merely pointed at what they wanted and intoned “zhe ge na ge” (this one and that one in Mandarin), a common practice among Singaporeans.