Old ad starring a young Amos Yee & Steven Lim will make you curl up & cringe

This is how much difference five years can make.

Olivia Lin | April 15, 2017, 05:30 PM

Before Amos Yee became an ill-famed "refugee" in the United States, he was a seemingly harmless kid who simply spoke with a strange accent.

Steven Lim, on the other hand, started out as the weird undies guy on Singapore Idol, but has since moved on to being a full-fledged online oddball personality ever since.

In short, Yee and Lim are clearly different and most of us will not readily associate one with the other, let alone imagine them together on screen.

So, fast food chain, Popeyes, was either extremely shrewd, forward-looking, or foolish five years ago, when it featured a very young Yee and slightly younger Lim in its pepper nuggets video advertisement.

Which one? This one.

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The 2012 advertisement, which has been circulating on Facebook and Twitter recently, follows a news-style format featuring Amos Yee as the host, going around a Popeyes outlet and interviewing "famous" patrons.

The first person he interviews is Steven Lim, who appears rather embarrassed about having to queue for nuggets like a commoner.

Screenshot via video

Yee then goes on to speak with the other famous blogger/vlogger patrons like Naomi Neo, Dee Kosh, Rachell Tan, and Hirzi.

Badly-received in 2012

When the commercial was released in 2012, people shuddered at the video cringefest, with many lambasting the choice of characters used in the video.

And this was when Yee had not gained the kind of notoriety that he has today too.

Popeyes responded to the backlash back then by saying that the cast members were chosen based on their wide fanbase, in order to appeal to different Singaporeans.

Screenshot via Popeyes Facebook page

However, many were not satisfied with Popeye's reasoning.

Screenshot via Popeyes Facebook page

Still badly-received in 2017

Fast forward five years, someone somewhere decided to revive the video again by sharing it on social media platforms, because why not?

After all, with everything that has happened to Yee over the years and with Lim, well still being Lim, we now have the benefit of judging the video with hindsight.

So, when you see these two Singaporean oddballs personalities in the same advertising campaign, the likelihood of striking viral gold in the present day increases twofold.

The video has even made it to the trending tab on YouTube.

Screenshot via YouTube comments

Unsurprisingly, the advertisement is still as poorly-received as ever.

But if the fast food chain was actually going for the "so bad, it's good" advertising strategy, it probably succeeded.

Here's a better ad you should check out.

All the times bank ads don’t say it like it is and make us vomit blood

Top image via video

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