Memes maketh man? The who, what and why of Singapore’s favourite GE memes

SINGAPORE – It should have been a staid affair. But the 2020 General Election, called under the pall of the most serious public health crisis in recent history, was a hoot online – producing such hits as Dr Tan Cheng Bock’s “hypebeast ah gong”, or hip grandfather persona; Charles Yeo’s English-Chinese “jian cardboard” sound bite as he wrestled with his mother tongue on live TV; and Deputy Prime Minister Heng Swee Keat’s indelible “East Coast Plan”.

“It was really ‘happening’,” said Mr Jonathan Lee, co-owner of popular page Memedef, which put out some 10 memes a day during the hustings.

In the country’s first internet election, with all physical events off owing to Covid-19 restrictions, the worlds of politics and social media seemed to fully converge. If the overlap was circumstantial then, it is intentional now.

Prime Minister Lawrence Wong is at home on podcasts and indulges TikTok trends, Health Minister Ong Ye Kung “spills the tea” (Gen Z slang for telling all) on the harms of vaping in Instagram reels, and WP MP Jamus Lim rarely goes more than three days without updating his socials.

And the political memes just keep coming – only more prolific, sophisticated and up-to-the-minute than before.

It makes sense. Scholastically, these viral grassroots jokes are recognised as a form of civic expression, allowing everyday folk to shape some of the discourse.

Still, well before memes became the language of social media, local politicians were already exciting the internet, and never more so than in the floodlights of a campaign trail.

The Straits Times looks back at the stars of viral election moments of yore and asks: “Where are they now?”

1. Teo Ser Luck

In 2011, the then MP for Pasir Ris-Punggol GRC tried to lead the limp crowd at a PAP rally in a cheer. Three times he cried out each of his running mates’ names, raising an arm to slice the air, a touch stiffly, as he cued voters to whoop. Finally, he bade them to “save one last cheer for me” – a too earnest plea that sent netizens over the edge. The spectacle of a boyish-looking establishment man failing to whip up a crowd was an early example of “cringe”. Mr Teo took some roasting but was safely returned to his seat on Polling Day. He gamely referenced the moment at another rally in GE2015, before exiting politics in 2017 as minister of state for manpower.

The 56-year-old, who declined to be interviewed, is now president of the national accountancy body and sits on the boards of several listed companies, including Chinese hotpot chain Haidilao and luxury real estate developer Yanlord. A long-time triathlete, he branched out from Ironman events in June 2024 to finish second in his age group at the gruelling circuits-based Hyrox fitness race. He still runs or swims daily, always before 5am, often sharing the evidence with his 22,000 Facebook followers – for which he could properly be termed a micro-influencer.

The former politician’s misfire was minor in hindsight, though its impact then was such that veteran local comedian mrbrown made a dance track remix of the cheer, in a true sign of the times.

2. Han Hui Hui

She burst onto the scene in 2014 as the face of the “Return Our CPF” protests at Hong Lim Park, wearing a T-shirt printed with the words “Wanna Sue Me?”.

The diminutive but feisty blogger, then only 23, was an instant, fist-shaking internet sensation. In 2015, she ran as an independent in Radin Mas SMC under the same anti-compulsory savings scheme banner, a cause not known to pique the young. Her maiden rally drew gawpers in the hundreds, and some heckling. Though hailed by fans as “Mulan” and wrestler “Triple H”, she lost her $14,500 deposit after finishing with 10 per cent of the vote share.

The 33-year-old is now a mother of three, living in Yishun, she told ST. As for what she does for a living, mum’s the word with Ms Han, who would “rather focus on issues”, of which the Central Provident Fund is still top of mind. These days, she is troubled by the mandatory national service too.

On whether she will stand in the coming general election, “you’ll find out on Nomination Day”, she said. Currently, she is “helping the opposition” in Radin Mas, Tanjong Pagar, Nee Soon and Yio Chu Kang.

But she attends PAP family events too and often gives feedback to Nee Soon GRC MPs K. Shanmugam and Derrick Goh on “how they can improve their events”, she said.

“I have never left Singapore (to seek asylum),” she said, putting to bed old rumours of an exile.

She is seeking donations from her followers, who number 10,000 on Facebook, for the $23,000 in costs that she said she must pay the Attorney-General’s Chambers, or risk being separated from her children. She said she was saddled with the debt after her court challenge against Singapore’s vaccination-differentiated measures was dismissed in 2022. The application was filed with five other unvaccinated people and the group of six were represented by Peoples Voice leader Lim Tean.

She has raised some $15,000 so far.

3. Choong Hon Heng

“Boo to PAP!” went his cri de coeur, “thumbs up man” was his alias. A business administrator then, Mr Choong Hon Heng made a splash at GE2015 when the last seconds of his impassioned rally speech went viral. In a garbled sequence, the first-time opposition candidate for Tampines GRC broke down the elements of a handshake – “a promise, a commitment and a tall order”. With uncommon vim, he asked: What would happen if that “tall order” was met? “Thumbs up, man,” he said, signing the gesture. And if not? “Boo! Boo to PAP!” he roared.

The display spawned parodies, but few knew the name of the National Solidarity Party (NSP) candidate, whose team lost to the PAP’s Tampines slate that year. A rematch at GE2020 ended with the same result.

The 55-year-old had actually joined the Progress Singapore Party in 2019, as one of its “first 1,000 recruits”, but ran with NSP in GE2020 because the smaller party had asked him to, he told ST.

Not picked to run in 2025, he considers himself “so-called retired”. “It’s peaceful,” he said.

He had worked with PSP chief Leong Mun Wai in Boon Lay until “someone bad-mouthed him”, causing his removal from the team in 2024, he added.

For the past five years, he has been taking night classes, because “we are living in Singapore, where a certificate to put on the forehead is most important”, he said. Where at and what for, he would like to keep “private and confidential”.

“I’m actually in two educational institutes now, I’m very ambitious,” he quipped.

On his big moment in 2015, he said: “It was unintended. It was a prepared speech but in point form. I like to be a bit spontaneous.”

4. Charles Yeo

The Reform Party newcomer got sympathetic chuckles for his ham-fisted but valiant attempt at a Mandarin speech in GE2020. His running mate, Mr Darren Soh, was meant to do the talking at the constituency political broadcast but was a last-minute no-show, leaving the young University of Warwick-educated lawyer scrambling to take over. His all too relatable fusion of English and Mandarin when he blanked on the Mandarin word for cardboard gave rise to the “jian (or pick) cardboard” meme. The whiplash when he spouted a sudden idiom – cheng he ti tong, a fancy way of saying “how dare you?” – also tickled viewers.

After losing to the PAP team in Ang Mo Kio GRC, Yeo, then a defence attorney, was appointed chairman of the Reform Party in 2020. Things went south in 2022, when he was arrested for alleged criminal breach of trust and forgery as a lawyer, prompting his departure from the opposition party’s leadership.

He skipped town while out on bail for other offences that same year, when he was given leave to travel for work. Since then, he has been a fugitive in the UK, claiming asylum from political persecution in Singapore. He was

taken into custody by the UK authorities

in November 2024, after Singapore requested his extradition. His hearing in the UK courts is set for May.

Neither Yeo nor his lawyers in London could be reached for comment but his daily Instagram updates – touching on matters personal, political and philosophical – suggest he has been released on bail. In April, he mentioned a precarious housing situation and a new job involving shift work.

Behind the screens: A peek into the meme mill

In the meme industry, attention is everything – you give it, to get it.

Memedef’s Mr Lee said “covering” the last election required round-the-clock scrutiny of news and events. Any time there was a stream – “debates, rallies, even down to vote counting” – “we were switched on”, he said, referring to his team of three others who ran the page for a following of over 50,000 during GE2020.

The blink-and-you’ll-miss-it nature of campaign humour meant everything had to be screened, and fast, said the then first-time voter, now 29.

Mostly it was instinctive, he said, a gut-level exercise in hacking the fat off the mass of election content, leaving only the funny bare bones. See it, save it, caption it, and then off to the group chat for vetting, went the drill.

Though not technically complex, this still needed hardware. The four memesmiths stuck to Android phones, because “it had a good meme generator app, useful for editing on the fly”, said Mr Lee, now an iPhone user.

None of it was “for profit”, he said, just fun – a remark recalling philosopher Simone Weil’s formulation of attention as the highest form of generosity.

Now the founder and head of a social media consultancy, Mr Lee is semi-retired from crafting the jokes of Memedef, yourgirlfriendiswhosia and diaozuihotline, a stable with over 130,000 followers combined. But the buck, now passed to Gen Z creators, keeps going.

Separately, the 23-year-old student behind the socialstudies.textbook page, speaking anonymously, said he “spends a lot of time” reading the news, to keep au courant with current affairs and public sentiment.

It is public opinion that gives him latitude, he said. “Memes are a safe way to comment on politics. There’s a freedom when the public is leaning one way, so you’re less likely to face any backlash for expressing the same.”

His most popular memes tend to address grouses or unhappiness, said the local university student.

For him, impartiality means everyone, establishment or opposition, is fair game. Still, he is chary of those whose knowledge stops at memes.

“Memes can humanise a politician but it kind of flattens them, too. Most people only remember Josephine Teo’s viral sound bites that emphasise how out of touch she is, but in reality, that may not be so,” he said, referring to the Minister for Digital Development and Information.

A memes to an end?

The million-dollar question is: Do memes matter at the ballot?

The head of communications and new media at NUS, Associate Professor Natalie Pang, thinks yes.

She said: “Research consistently shows that consumption of content on the internet and social media has an indirect impact on how people vote. It can shape how people think about either the politician or the issues that are meme-ed.”

Take the WP’s Associate Professor Jamus Lim, whose GE2020 debate showing spawned a breadth of memes, she said. The internet crowned him man of the match at the first election debate, when he smoothly parried Foreign Minister Vivian Balakrishnan’s suggestion that the WP was the “PAP-lite”. When he said the WP sought to deny the PAP a “blank cheque”, the expression became a talking point, eclipsed online only by his other catchphrase from the night, “warms the cockles of my heart”. The disarmingly quaint line launched a thousand memes. By the end of the night, he was anointed “Jamus oppa” (the Korean term for “boyfriend”). 

“It had real political consequence in that I think it had an impact in terms of how people saw not just Jamus, but also the Sengkang team,” Prof Pang said.

The effects can cut both ways, she added. A “hurtful” meme can be a pain at the polls.

Professor Kenneth Paul Tan, who specialises in politics, film and cultural studies at Hong Kong Baptist University, said memes tend to “augment what people are already feeling” and are more likely to sway fence-sitters.

On the flip side, even memes that centre on politicians’ gaffes might have a “depoliticising” effect, he said.

“We laugh and that’s it,” he said, citing the Aristotelian effect of catharsis. “It does not translate into political action or political consciousness. That’s a more conservative reading that I think fits the Singapore situation well.”

Over time, even an unflattering meme becomes endearing, assuming its subject is a good sport, he said, citing DPM Heng’s good-humoured recovery from his bungled “East Coast Plan” speech.

What memes are, though, is revealing.

At the heart of the humour lies the basic tension between what we expect our leaders to look like – “elite” – and how we want them to be, “not elitist”, Prof Tan said.

“So we also laugh at people who dare to think of themselves as leaders but somehow don’t show qualities better than us,” he added. Even valorising memes shows up their subjects in some way, with catchphrases like “warms the cockles of my heart” revealing the oddity of its speaker’s diction.

But laughter does not mean hatred, he said. Memes are only a new spin on that ancient tradition, one as old as satire and European carnivals of the Middle Ages, when peasants could play kings – a licence, however limited, to punch up.