Malaysian hotel trolls Instagram influencers by… making them clean messy hotel rooms?!

Imagine this. A bunch of social media influencers from all over Asia gets flown into Malaysia, and as they’re ready to chill out on their comfy 5-star beds, they get given… a messy room? And they gotta clean it up on their own?! 

That’s exactly what happened to the participants in a new online reality game show, called the ‘The Amazing Sunway City Challenge’ hosted by our friends fromSunway City Kuala Lumpur. 10 influencers will do all sorts of fun challenges to win RM25,000 worth of Sunway Pals Points and the new Samsung Galaxy Note 9. 

But as we looked at the list of handpicked influencers, we couldn’t help but wonder… who IS this dude representing our country? So we went and bluntly asked the guy himself…

From Kelantan to KL – how he went from salesman to social media star

Introducing Jaa Suzuran – a name you’re probably unfamiliar with, seeing as you’re probably in the standard Cilisos demographic.

In a phone interview with Jaa, the chatty 23-year-old Instagrammer from Kelantan casually told us about his journey into becoming what he is today. Before the glitz, he was a salesman. But it was only a matter of time before his mischief turned things around for him…

“Ia bermula 8 tahun lepas. Masa tu saya kerja salesman, tapi boring… jadi saya buat (video) prank dengan calling centre, dan video tu viral dekat Malaysia.

[…] Saya buat banyak video prank. Lama-lama tu, saya pun buka akaun IG. Dari situ, dah dapat banyak followers then I buat movie. Dari tu, I pergi temuduga kat ERA dan berjaya menjadi penyampai radio pulak.” – Jaa to Cilisos

But he has since left ERA (one of the country’s most popular BM radio stations), as he now focuses on digital freelancing, acting and hosting. Now… just how popular is Jaa in the digital sphere? (And how does he actually sound like?! Watch video below.)

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Sajo lah masuk @koklanasbarber nok gura bewok dengan customer . Haha mujur customer sporting . Sapo beso mari sini ? Angkat tange sikit ?#KokLanasBarber #KelateJahPehe

A post shared by ABE JAA (@jaasuzuran) on Jan 12, 2019 at 1:26am PST

Cilisos dunno much about this “clout” thingamajig cos we’re not cool and only have 1,227 Instagram followers… and even big-time English influencers like Jinnyboy has 179,000 followers… so Jaa’s 1.2 million Instagram following seems pretty impressive to us la. In fact, that number isn’t too far from Syed Saddiq’s 1.7 million. We also found 10 other Jaa Suzuran fan club IG accounts, possibly made by fans with a little too much time on their hands. Walao.

But since we had no idea who Jaa was (haiya different demographic ma), we asked Sunway why they picked him and here’s what they said:

“The number of followers isn’t everything. If the KOL has a huge following but doesn’t have a fitting personality, then we won’t select that person. We wanted someone who is outgoing, keen to try new things, bubbly.” – Sunway Group rep to Cilisos

And seeing as some of these challenges are pretty crazy – think daring bungee jumps, losing balance on slippery ice, getting an assignment done in a freaking haunted house… None of these influencers were given details about the challenges, so you can imagine how painful it would be to watch a prim and un-sporting participant try to compete! With that in mind, no wonder they even roped in the bubbly af social media darling, Jenn Chia, to host the entire series.   If you haven’t heard of Jenn, just think of her as that neighbour’s daughter you went to school with. Funny, down-to-earth, and really, really fun to hang around with… although we actually tak kenal her laaa but that’s how we feel watching her stuff lor. 

Now, check out some of our homeboy’s competition…

 The nine other influencers all come from Asia, such as China’s Gong Yi…

 

 

 

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A post shared by @june_gong on Dec 27, 2018 at 11:32pm PST

… Thailand’s SorDor Style…

A post shared by “สอดอ Style” (@pimlar_daiiyy) on Feb 17, 2019 at 8:23pm PST

… Singapore’s Matthew Stewart…

 

 

 

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A post shared by Fish (@maxzzie) on Feb 5, 2019 at 5:41am PST

… as well as the Philippine’s Medyo Maldito, India’s RJ Abhinav, Indonesia’s Michelle Joan, Taiwan’s Ironbull, Korea’s Hong Young Gee, and UAE’s Hadia Ghaleb. After getting everyone in, it took the crew 3 days to shoot the whole series. Altogether they amass a social following of 25 million across different platforms, making it a surefire way for Sunway to reach newer audiences like never before.

You can also expect a lot of funny clashes in their communication, since everyone’s backgrounds are so varied.

“Yang lucu, yang lawak tu pasal ni la, pasal speaking banyak-banyak. Saya punya English kan ‘extraordinary’, so gelak gelak juga lah.

Yang paling tak tahan tu, masa challenge kat rumah hantu. Memang kelakar teruk dengan kontesten dari Middle East (Hadia Ghaleb).” – Jaa jokes with Cilisos on the funniest part of the challenge

Just watch them in action, and you could win a Samsung phone

So if you like watching a bunch of youngsters challenge each other silly, just head over to… sigh… our competitor (but friends!) at SAYS, or Sunway City and WebTVAsia’s official media platforms. And since Samsung is a proud sponsor, they’re also throwing in the Samsung Galaxy Note 9 for viewers to win! Just watch along to learn how to win.

The 5-episode series will premiere on 28th February 2019, so if you’d like to win, don’t be late k 🙂 Check out the first episode, with these influencers freaking out over trying to clean their room: