Just like in the years of Bush yonder past, Trump’s inauguration to the office has become an orange goldmine for American comedians, especially those who have always taken a more political slant for their jokes like Trevor Noah, John Oliver and Stephen Colbert, among others.
And recently, a popular bit with these comedians is to imitate Trump’s strange way of speaking, from his slow enunciation to his ‘pinch and flail’ hand gestures from his tiny hands.
So it stands to reason that, just in time for America’s President Day, a video meme has been circulating the world that is still confused about how such a parody of a spoilt business tycoon managed to become the number 1 man in America right now.
This is the climate that this brand spanking new Malaysian take of the meme to come in.
Employing the ever popular and goodly tactic of a Trump imitation, the video is an open letter to the Trump Administration about how, of course America is first. America is the best country. The greatest. No other country can compare.
But the video argues that if America is first, then Malaysia should be second. Malaysians will helpfully carry a woman’s bag, and she doesn’t even need to ask.
Published on YouTube by The Ping Banter on the 20th of February, this ringing endorsement of Malaysia’s beautiful culture and people only clocked in at 2K views when we checked yesterday, but as of time of writing it’s already clocking in 16.7K views, and growing really fast. The fastest that you’ve ever seen. Fantastic.
The parody video is an expression of everything that makes Malaysia great, with particular focus on what would appeal to Trump’s particular interests, as they have been publicised by the American media.
Malaysians are loving how relatable the open letter is, identifying with the points expressed in the video, and even praising the writing.
A Parody Of Trump’s Inauguration Speech
The ‘America First’ policy by the Trump administration gained notoriety during Trump’s inauguration, the second meme to have come from the event.
In the now infamous speech that Trump penned for himself, his first decree as President of The United States, Trump said that, “From this day forward, a new vision will govern our land. From this day forward it is only going to be America first, America first.”
This decree gained approval from other world leaders such as president of Russia, Vladimir Putin, and Zimbabwe’s president Robert Mugabe.
However the Netherlands took a different point of view (make sure you turn on the subtitles).
As described by the channel on their video, “The whole world was watching for the inauguration of the 45th president of the United States: Donald J. Trump. Because we realise it’s better for us to get along, we decided to introduce our tiny country to him. In a way that will probably appeal to him the most.”
First aired on a weekly comedy show Zondag met Lubach, the team aims to showcase the beauty of Netherlands, filled with touristic pans of the beautiful views as a Trump impersonator expresses to Trump exactly why Netherlands is fantastic, absolutely fantastic.
And as Time has covered, other countries soon followed suit with #everysecondcounts, including clearly, Malaysia.
And the American-aware Malaysians are loving it.
Considering how one good viral video was how YouTubers such as Jinnyboy rose to fame, this parody may be Ping Banter’s first step into internet stardom in Malaysia. Their content clearly resonates in Malaysia, and they were timely enough to take advantage of a good global meme.