Seey Yoy Tomorroy Noight At Stay-dium Poot-chrah, Bookit Juhleel!

FAO radio deejays and/or the idiots who are in charge of the hiring and firing of them

Why are there only three types of deejays?

First you have the anchorman-esque guy who speaks fluently and clearly and who would most certainly be the voice of the next public service message. Ross, I think, from Light & Easy or LightFM or whatever they're called now, is the best example. My current pet peeve, apart from the excruciatingly annoying Delicia Waffle ad, is his thing about his friends Lai Ming (sounds like the Chinese girls school tepi KLCC) and an Indian boy and how they were like the poster boys for muhibbah and how this whole 1Malaysia bullshit was how we were and how we still can be. As far as I'm concerned, all I take out of that is that "we're not". But anyway, deejays like him are fine, especially for a station like Light. He may sound boring, he may even sound like your dad--but sometimes you need simplicity. None of that energy or chaos. Just a relaxing (or boring, if you're that cynical) voice to transition you into the next song. I guess he appeals to the demographic. For fuck's sake, they play "Tie A Yellow Ribbon Round The Old Oak Tree". Paham-paham ah kan.

Next up is the annoying twentysomething hipster. They exude coolness and are (sometimes) funny, but, true to the "never went full retard" philosophy of appeal, have a ridiculous fear or vulnerability, gaining them your sympathy or at least an "awwh". These are the ones with a little too much energy, and try so hard to be funny. Sometimes, maybe they even try a little too hard and it gets very lame. They will scream and laugh and be giggling like a 14-year old girl, whether or not they're a guy or girl. Sometimes, their mengada-ness is actually annoying, when they in fact tried to be endearing. I suppose most radio deejays are like this. Perhaps, with a bit of censorship and editing, this paragraph could be a job ad for radio stations? I'm not saying that just because they don't appeal to me, they fail at doing their jobs. No. I'm pretty far away from your average twentysomething. If I have to have the radio, I'll only tune in to Mix or Light. If they can both conspire to disappoint me, then it's Traxx. But alas, I digress. I can understand that you want to appeal to the biggest chunk of the segment and whatnot. But none of them are household names, nor are they rockstars of their industry. Perhaps a change to spice things up?

I know I said three, but I kind of forgot about the third type. In fact, I just realized that my beef is actually with the idiots who record advertisements. And coincidentally At The Beginning just started playing (fuck you, Anastasia's an awesome flick), so let's rewind shall we?

FAO radio advertisement voices and/or the idiots who are in charge of the hiring and firing of them

These are the true culprits. Why do they sound Australian? No. Ows-tryl-yun. Seriously. Why can't a Malaysian radio station  pronounce Malaysian names properly? I went to see David Foster & Friends, which was awesome. But the day before the show, I heard an ad for the customary free tickets contest. Yet the voice was Australian. No. Ows-tryl-yun. "Seey yoy tomorroy noight at Stay-dium Poot-chrah, Bookit Juhleel!" he said. Juhleel. Fuck me, are we all that crazy for Mat Sallehs that even an annoyingly thick Aussie accent is what we need? It's not like it was one-off. We've had these Aussie-sounding ads for years now. I doubt Australia enjoys listening to someone with a Glaswegian or Ah Beng accent for all their goings on. Get rid, please. Go scout any public speaking class/contest and pay him/her for your ads. Apa susah sangat?

If they don't sound Australian--no, Ows-tryl-yun--idiots in ads (adiots?) will try as best as is possible to conform to a Malaysian stereotype. You have the Ah Beng ("Eh, we same-same la, Boss. I oso do like dat wan! Chree time you know!"). You can just imagine him picking his gold tooth with his three inch-long pinkie fingernail as he persuades you to buy godknowswhat. Then you have the Macha, whose every W vill be a V (see what I did there?), or was that V becomes W? And their every word that ends in T or D will have it amplified. Like a qalqalah. Go ask your Muslim friend what that means. An Arab-speaker might know this, too. Is tajwid Arabic grammar, then? Or is it just for reading the Quran? If you do know, drop me a line. Anyway. I'm surprised there isn't a conservative "tak baik lah" Minah Tudung option. Perhaps they are confined to Era only. That would make sense, I guess. But what would I know about Era.

Last, but not least, would be the musical ads. Of course radio is for your aural pleasure only, so you make the best of sounds. And music is catchy. Listen to radio for two hours and rate the musical ads you hear. Before you're done, you've probably cut your ears off, then shot yourself to end the misery. Off the top of my head, the current 'favourites' are Delicia Waffles, Sunwhite Rice and newcomer Poslaju. Delicia uses an original composition (at least I think so), but they score no points for originality, and overachieve when it comes to annoyingness:

I love my waffles, Delicia waffles. I love em with ice cream, I love em with honey. They're yummy yummy yummy... !@#$^%&^&*()(*&%%$ ...waffle-waffle-waffle... waffle-waffle-waffle... waffle-waffle-waffle

Gardenia used to have such a simple and nice ad for their bread. Then they fucked it up with a fancy-schmancy guitar riff and whatnot and have a full song about....bread. No one gives a shit. They buy it, sapu peanut butter, telan. And now they have Delicia, which must mean they thought the bread ad was a success. Maybe (and I shudder at the thought)... it was. Now, if you haven't ripped an ear off yet, Sunwhite Rice will definitely make you do it. Seriously:

Mommmmmmmmy loves the Sunwhite Rice, Sunwhite Rice, Sunwhite Rice
Mommmmmmmmy loves the Sunwhite Rice, AAA for quality!

Going to the tune of London Bridge, this abomination of an ad is sung by a Chinese girl who--if you've heard it many enough times--sounds like she knows how stupid it is, but is simply acting professionally to get the job done to get paid. It is that bad. I'll let you judge the Poslaju ad yourselves. They can't even get the syllables right, for fuck's sake.

Remember the days of "755-2525! 755-2525! Pizza Hut Special Delivery"? They don't make 'em like they used to, I guess.

This is Malaysia. At the end of every sentence we add lah and kan and meh or mah and of course, doh. Regardless of whether or not it's English or Malay we try to speak, it kind of sounds the same at times. Obviously there'll be a bias towards one language but you get the point. But for all the rojakness of our language and the sheer stupidity of the people, come the fuck on--we can't be that dumb to only be attracted to the stereotype? Or annoying songs and jingles?


Why?