If you haven’t seen the video yet, you probably live under a rock, or have had no internet access over the past couple of weeks. I’m talking about the latest local video that went viral – Choc’O’s there they go.
If so, here it is:
The video was flooding Facebook and Twitter feeds all over Singapore as it went viral over a few days.
Not exactly viral in a positive manner either – people were laughing at it, and were not pulling their punches when it came to hurling nasty, insulting comments not only about the video, but everyone in it as well.
Within a matter of days, the video had garnered over 50,000 more views, some likes, a bunch of dislikes, and dozens of comments, more bad than good.
One of the many nasty comments left on the video
20 year-old hip hop enthusiast Robert Lee first came across the video when a friend of his shared it over Facebook, and has some pretty heated, some might say extreme, views on it.
“I watched it and my jaw just dropped. It was the most retarded, pretentious, rubbish music video I had seen. What the (expletive) is that guy trying to do? I watched the video like ten times and was laughing my ass off.”
He also quite readily admits to being one of the dozens of haters spewing spiteful comments on the Youtube page, which resulted in the comments function eventually being disabled.
However, 19 year-old Syarul, or more famously known as Choc’O, is taking all the hating pretty well.
“That music video is actually a couple of years old, but was uploaded only recently. It was done when I was still young, wild and carefree, and just wanted to have some fun. I’m a changed man, I’m in NS now, serving my country,” he said with a laugh.
Even dressed rather simply in a black tee shirt and jeans, he looked every bit the part of a hip hop artist, with gold chains on his wrist, a rather large, gold-adorned watch and donning a pair of shiny, golden sunglasses that Kanye himself would be proud of.
“I know I can’t please everybody, but some of the comments are really too much. It’s not that I can’t take criticism, but it has to be constructive at least.”
Anna, his girlfriend, is quite understandably on Syarul’s side, although she does admit being quite shocked at the video at first also.
“The first time I saw his music video ‘There They Go”, I was like “this is not my boyfriend!” But I didn’t want to judge him based on that video, because he may have changed already,” she says.
However, as many haters as he has, there still are people on his side, fans or otherwise, who are behind Syarul and his ventures, and for them, he is grateful.
Comments like these, which defended Choc’O, were few and far between.
One of them is 19 year-old Teh Wen Kai, who feels that the video does not deserve all the flak it seems to be getting.
“Of course it’s not the best hip hop video out there, but it is a Singaporean production, and such a young guy also, so why don’t we try to support him instead of bashing one of our own? Some of the comments I’ve seen are really over the line,” he says.
Faris, the producer of the song There They Go and long-time mentor of Syarul, sums the whole experience up with this statement: “Hate it or love it, it’s all good. That’s life. If you don’t have haters, then it’s such a boring life.”
Ultimately, hate him or love him, Choc’o is here to stay.
Check out our video interview with Choc’O and some of his mates.
tpsphere.wordpress.com 