Nearly a yr in the past, Daisy Anne Mitchell created a stir on TikTok when she uploaded an notorious clip that kicked off with an innocuous query.
“For those who’re from Singapore, why are you white?” she asks in a bimbotic American accent. She then launches right into a extremely expressive – and spectacular – Singlish tirade to clarify how native she is, together with a curse phrase and snippets of the nationwide anthem.
It garnered round 4 million views on TikTok and was broadly reposted on Twitter too.
Contemplating solely 20 individuals – all are her buddies – adopted her earlier than she went viral, her TikTok following has grown considerably to the present 55,900.
The 23-year-old artistic drama instructor and freelance artist, who’s initially from Britain, migrated right here together with her household in 2004 and have become a everlasting resident in 2013.
She attended a neighbourhood main college within the east, College of the Arts and Lasalle Faculty of the Arts, the place she graduated from its musical theatre programme with firstclass honours in addition to a diploma in efficiency with distinction.
On her in a single day fame, Mitchell says: “Like many, I downloaded TikTok in the course of the circuit breaker, however did not actually put up a lot. I’d do some tendencies, use some sounds, however I wasn’t posting to get views.
“I did a bit of rant the place I code-switched and that acquired traction in Singapore and other people requested for extra accent movies. It was thrilling, so I used a trending sound on the time to make the ‘For those who’re from Singapore, why are you white?’ video and that blew up.
“I nonetheless make movies of my health diary, getting my nails achieved and single-girl woes, however the Singlish stuff all the time will get seen extra.”
However there’s additionally a draw back to going viral, as Mitchell feels she continually has to defend herself in relation to how localised she is.
She says: “I’ve been requested variations of this query my entire life and, each time, it jogs my memory that regardless of how Singaporean I really feel, regardless of how lengthy I have been right here, it doesn’t matter what college I went to or how a lot CPF (Central Provident Fund) I’ve, I’ll by no means belong as a result of I do not appear to be you do.
“It is humorous how a lot of what you appear to be versus what you sound like and other people’s perceptions and opinions of that form your identification. A really area of interest group of individuals experiences this.”
Although the Singapore accent is “second nature” to her, Mitchell admits she ended up taking up a extra normal American/British accent when rising up, which “plenty of third-culture youngsters do”.
She says: “My mother and father would guilt me about Singlish, so I simply by no means spoke it round them, although I used to be utilizing it day-after-day in school. So, sure, I feel I am fairly good at code-switching.”
