59-year-old Toh Kia Hing laughs when I suggest over coffee one afternoon that he should adopt a more iconic moniker.
“For what? I’m a sound engineer, not an actor!”
He may deny it, but Mr Toh is most certainly an actor. He’s even a rather famous one—having achieved virality at one point, the key indicator of success in the social media era.
If by now his name or his picture hasn’t rung any bells yet, perhaps this might:
Toh shot to fame in 2012 when the above video “Old Man Gets Sexually Harassed By Sexy Colleagues” went viral.
It was the second in a three part series starring Toh, where he plays an uncle in search of the perfect job. Despite already working a ‘dream job’ as a masseur for models, he is unhappy and leaves to work in an office and later, in a sports retail store selling bikinis.
With his permanently furrowed brow, black Casio watch and crinkled white polo tee, Toh fits the part of a disgruntled uncle to a T. That, combined with his character’s imperviousness to the charms and cleavage of the women around him was what catapulted the video, and him, to stardom. Within a week, the video garnered over 3 million views on YouTube.
Like most viral sensations, it began by accident—or as Uncle Toh jokes, “I got conned.”
Back then, Toh had zero acting experience. He was simply a freelance sound engineer who happened to be friends with the right people at the right time.
“One day I got a call from my friend Nicholas Lee, you know Ronnie from Under One Roof? He said he needed help with a script.”
Nicholas had turned to Toh out of desperation. He was short on time and the person who was originally supposed to play the role wasn’t a good fit. All Toh had to do was come in and read the script like a local would.
Fast forward several days and Toh received a call from Nicholas telling him that his ‘audition tape’ had been approved by the client. He’d just have to do it again in front of cameras, lights and a whole crew.
“I got stage fright. I’m not a camera person,” he tells me.
To make it work, Nicholas had to be stationed on the side of the camera so that Toh could act out his lines to him instead of the camera. “That’s why in the video, you see I’m not looking at the camera.”
When the shoot was done, Toh packed up and went home, unaware of what was soon to come.
He wasn’t even aware that the ads had been released until people started recognising him and coming up to say hi or snap a picture. In following days, he started getting calls from various media outlets for interviews and even appeared on the front page of the Sunday Times.
Once, he recalls, he was eating Mala with a friend when a guy, fresh out of army came up and saluted him.
“He told me thank you, you make my life very meaningful.”
More at https://sg.yahoo.com/style/6-years-virality-catching-singapore-025820408.html
“For what? I’m a sound engineer, not an actor!”
He may deny it, but Mr Toh is most certainly an actor. He’s even a rather famous one—having achieved virality at one point, the key indicator of success in the social media era.
If by now his name or his picture hasn’t rung any bells yet, perhaps this might:
Toh shot to fame in 2012 when the above video “Old Man Gets Sexually Harassed By Sexy Colleagues” went viral.
It was the second in a three part series starring Toh, where he plays an uncle in search of the perfect job. Despite already working a ‘dream job’ as a masseur for models, he is unhappy and leaves to work in an office and later, in a sports retail store selling bikinis.
With his permanently furrowed brow, black Casio watch and crinkled white polo tee, Toh fits the part of a disgruntled uncle to a T. That, combined with his character’s imperviousness to the charms and cleavage of the women around him was what catapulted the video, and him, to stardom. Within a week, the video garnered over 3 million views on YouTube.
Like most viral sensations, it began by accident—or as Uncle Toh jokes, “I got conned.”
Back then, Toh had zero acting experience. He was simply a freelance sound engineer who happened to be friends with the right people at the right time.
“One day I got a call from my friend Nicholas Lee, you know Ronnie from Under One Roof? He said he needed help with a script.”
Nicholas had turned to Toh out of desperation. He was short on time and the person who was originally supposed to play the role wasn’t a good fit. All Toh had to do was come in and read the script like a local would.
Fast forward several days and Toh received a call from Nicholas telling him that his ‘audition tape’ had been approved by the client. He’d just have to do it again in front of cameras, lights and a whole crew.
“I got stage fright. I’m not a camera person,” he tells me.
To make it work, Nicholas had to be stationed on the side of the camera so that Toh could act out his lines to him instead of the camera. “That’s why in the video, you see I’m not looking at the camera.”
When the shoot was done, Toh packed up and went home, unaware of what was soon to come.
He wasn’t even aware that the ads had been released until people started recognising him and coming up to say hi or snap a picture. In following days, he started getting calls from various media outlets for interviews and even appeared on the front page of the Sunday Times.
Once, he recalls, he was eating Mala with a friend when a guy, fresh out of army came up and saluted him.
“He told me thank you, you make my life very meaningful.”
More at https://sg.yahoo.com/style/6-years-virality-catching-singapore-025820408.html
