A video clip featuring Deputy Commerce Minister Nattawut Saikuar singing and dancing to a song apparently adapted from Johnny Wakelin's Black Superman was deleted from YouTube yesterday afternoon after it attracted a wave of criticism.
A photo capture taken from a YouTube clip shows Deputy Commerce Minister Nattawut Saikuar singing and dancing to a song ‘Show Huay Show Suay’. The clip, which has been taken down, drew criticism as it was apparently adapted from Johnny Wakelin’s ‘Black Superman’.
YouTube users ridiculed Show Huay Show Suay, the song written by Mr Nattawut to promote traditional grocery stores.
Online critics described the song-and-dance video as a waste of the government's time and money. Some of them also warned the promotional tune sounds suspiciously like the song Black Superman.
The Commerce Ministry uploaded Show Huay Show Suay to YouTube on June 22 to celebrate the two-month mark in Mr Nattawut's move to encourage more people to buy goods from traditional grocery shops. In the video, Mr Nattawut, commerce officials and grocery retailers sing and dance to the song.
By 11am yesterday, the music video had racked up more than 50,600 page views. However, it had attracted more than 1,560 "dislikes", compared with around 160 "likes".
One commentator, using the moniker nb5, said: "This is retarded".
Another YouTube user, ss10110tk, said: "The deputy commerce minister is terrible". Another, using the alias Nattawat reang, said: "Tragic _ can't they find anything better to do?"
Many commentators also pointed out the ministry, which is in charge of monitoring intellectual property rights, could be sued for copyright violation for borrowing the song without permission.
YouTube showed a message saying the video had been removed by the user about 4pm yesterday.