One Sneak Peek Into The Funny Business

This guy here delivers a new brand of Ah Beng humour, and it ranges from PG to punch-worthy.

After creating content under the banners of Mothership and SGAG, he is now a freelancer that produces short digital comedy skits. 

But Faris did not start off with the intention of becoming an online sensation.

It all began when he decided to cheer a friend up by filming silly content. 

He did not want to upload the skit, but seeing how happy his friend was with the work, he eventually put it online. 

To their surprise, it became really popular.

This sparked his realisation that they were able to make Singaporeans laugh in a manner that differed from existing local content creators. 

1. How it all began

“Since I was young, I constantly watched shows and youtubers like Nigahiga. I was always a fan of Vine ever since it came out in 2012. 

And then a friend of mine just broke up and was very depressed, so I thought to create stupid stuff during COVID to cheer him up and get other people to notice us instead of just wallowing at home.

The video was inspired by another content creator on TikTok. I didn’t want to upload it initially, but my friend was very happy, so I relented. The skit blew up and then I realised that we can make Singaporeans laugh with our unique sense of humour that is not seen in other content creators in the Singapore online comedy scene. 

Our content kept blowing up and eventually we got noticed by SGAG, which took us in.” 

2. Analysis of local humour

“Comedians in Singapore are more diverse now.

In the past, their humour would be very PG. They tend not to touch a lot on race and topics that we grew up upon as Singaporeans. It was very clean humour. There wasn’t any racist or ah beng humour.

Singaporean humour revolves a lot around relatability. You don’t even have to be funny in Singapore, you just have to be relatable to be seen as a content creator or a comedian. In the United States or the United Kingdom, humour is more ‘smart’ — the comedian will share jokes that have more depth or levels to it. For example, Character A acts all high and mighty, but when Character B comes in he suddenly becomes very timid — this format is something that I am very inspired by. A lot of skits in other countries have different formats. I will take their formats and slap on a Singaporean stereotype. For instance, guys act ‘gangster’ when it is just them, but become very polite when their girlfriends arrive. These kinds of things inspire me to create content. 

My favourite comedian is TRA RAGS, his humour is very relatable from a Malay perspective. If you were to post Malay humour at its very best to an online page, you will definitely be cancelled. This guy is a black American that does fantastic skits that are both wretched and can be enjoyed by everyone. He is very creative.” 

3. What differentiates offensive talk from humour

“I had to learn this myself, as when you are pushing the boundaries of humour, you tend to offend a lot of people. But making fun of oneself justifies the offensiveness in the content.

For example, if I am Malay, I can make fun of myself. If I have a Chinese or Indian friend in the video, it will then be okay to make fun of them. If I were to talk about another race and I don’t have someone from that race in the video, then that is considered offensive. Anything you make fun of must be in the video itself so there would be an irony there, instead of you just making fun of other people. 

You must recognise the powers in certain things. Making fun of a majority is fine, but making fun of a minority is not. Punching up is okay but if you are punching down, you have to be very careful.” 

4. Content creation process

“I dissect skits from all around the world.

Why are they funny? I will break the characters in these skits down, and observe their interactions. 

I tend to save a lot of videos that I think are genius. Once I understand the format, I will then try to see if I can remake it in a Singaporean context.

The content has to be relatable, because it will not get noticed or shared in Singapore if it is not.

Sometimes I will gain inspiration through interactions with friends, and they mention something funny. 

I will then see how many jokes I can come up with when such an interaction happens. If there are more than five jokes that I can come up with about the scenario, then I will make it into a skit. If it is very tough to make a joke based on the situation, then I will just forget about it.”

5. Advice to aspiring content creators

“I used to suffer from always trying to make things right. I think people must realise that in the present moment, they are the best in whatever they are doing, and they should  do instead of worrying about whether whatever they have created is the best product. 

If you are a perfectionist, you can take more care into creating, but you shouldn’t procrastinate to the point where you lose the fire to create. You have to just do it instead of worrying. 

If I had worried about my image when I did that very first skit with my friend, and that friend didn’t just post the video, I think I would still be doing other jobs until now. But it is very tough because here, people care a lot about their image. Just know that in Singapore, humour is a very big space. Things that I find are absolutely not funny, there can be an audience for it. There is no one way to make content, so there will definitely be an audience for you if you dare to create.

Instead of worrying, just do it.”

Connect with Faris here:

https://www.linkedin.com/in/faris-samri-22a10b188/ (LinkedIn)

@faris.samri (Instagram)

Follow our telegram channel: https://t.me/onesneakpeekinto

And that is all for today’s One Sneak Peek Into.

Stay tuned for more insights from our interview series as we continue to explore the stories of trailblazers breaking barriers and redefining success.