My Hong KongWhy Asians love YouTube star Uncle Roger – we’ve all got one in the family

Uncle Roger’s tone of dismay and disbelief when critiquing a BBC Food cooking tutorial sounded familiar to my ears and probably to many others

Most Asian children have to tolerate many Uncle Rogers, but they don’t complain because they accept that it’s part of growing up

3-MIN READ3-MIN

Uncle Roger is a comedic persona created by Malaysian stand-up comedian Nigel Ng, who has found international fame after his video critiquing a BBC Food cooking tutorial went viral.

Published: 11:00am, 5 Dec 2020Updated: 4:25pm, 4 May 2021

I love Uncle Roger and I can safely say that a lot of people, probably millions around the world, feel the same. Strangely, my affection for him also comes with a hint of fear, albeit buried under many layers of respect.

On the off chance you’ve been living in a cave, let me tell you a bit about him.

Uncle Roger is a comedic persona created by Malaysian stand-up comedian Nigel Ng. The persona rose to international fame after a video of him giving a blow-by-blow critique of an egg fried rice cooking tutorial on the BBC Food website by TV presenter Hersha Patel went viral. The video, posted in July, has so far attracted nearly 30 million views on YouTube.

Viewers around the world have been in stitches watching Uncle Roger’s barely concealed disdain of Patel’s rice-cooking technique. But conversely, there were critics who weren’t impressed with Uncle Roger’s no-holds-barred comments against Patel. Some people didn’t really understand or appreciate the humour and felt that his comments were unnecessary, maybe even cruel.

Uncle Roger with Hersha Patel in a follow-up video to his famous viral critique. Image: YouTube / mrnigelng

Triggered by the way Patel cooked the rice, Ng screamed, groaned, cringed and curled up during the video in the manner of a stereotypical middle-aged Asian uncle. Her culinary crimes included draining the cooked rice through a sieve, running it under a tap to remove the starch, measuring the water with a cup instead of her finger and not washing the rice before cooking it.