In Malaysia, though every race lives in harmony, we sometimes see things only skin-deep. We tend to judge other people to confirm our own biases.
We see someone’s clothes, hear someone’s accent and look at their skin colour without realising that there’s more to the stereotypes surrounding these things.
To highlight this behaviour, Celcom created a social experiment called “Guess the Malaysian”.
Celcom has always been a champion of racial integration, inclusiveness and diversity hence, with this video, they hope to break social stigmas and to open up Malaysians’ perspectives on each individual human beings.
Firstly, they started with a few rounds of guessing on Celcom’s Facebook page. Users were asked to guess the identity of a specific Malaysian based on 3 rounds of clues featuring 5 Candidates
Basically, netizens had to make their guess based on things the candidates shared. From simple things such as their voice, their accent, what their interests are, and even what language they’re speaking.
After the polls were collected on September 11th, netizens had to wait until the following day to learn of the true answers…and it definitely gave Malaysians a wake up call.
On September 12th, the full social experiment video was launched on Celcom’s Facebook and YouTube channels.
Watch it here:
To present a real and fair depiction of Malaysians and their perception of each other, this whole social experiment was completely unscripted and un-staged.
Both the Candidates and Participants were real, ordinary Malaysians from different racial and social backgrounds.
Their stories and responses were recorded live and they spoke based on their own opinions without any prompting or influencing from Celcom in any way.
With this social experiment and social engagement campaign for Malaysia Day, Celcom hopes for Malaysians to appreciate and value the uniqueness of each race and religion.
Celcom hopes that the campaign encourages impartially and inclusiveness in celebrating all the differences that keep the nation together, for 61 years and counting.
