Super Ring sees social chatter spike (again) with Najib's jail sentencing

share on

twitter /
facebook /
linkedin /
- email
- telegram
- whatsapp
- wechat
- pinterest
- line
- snapchat
- reddit

Former Malaysia PM Najib Razak (pictured) is set to begin his 12-year jail term for corruption in the 1MDB scandal after losing out in his final appeal to overturn the sentence. Multiple media outlets including Channel NewsAsia and The Straits Times said the Federal Court dismissed his appeal to overturn the 12-year jail term and RM210 million fine over seven charges in the 1MDNB scandal.

He was ordered to begin his prison sentence immediately and was taken to straight to Kajang Prison from the courthouse. According to The Business Times, chief justice Maimun Tuan Mat said on behalf of a five-judge panel that they find the appeal "devoid of any merits", adding that they find the conviction and sentence to be safe. He added that the panel shared a unanimous view that the evidence provided during the trial "points overwhelmingly to guilt on all seven charges".

The latest verdict comes two years after the High Court found Najib guilty of receiving approximately RM42 million from SRC International in his personal bank account, ST said. However, he was allowed to post bail last year after the High Court sentence was upheld by a three-member Court of Appeal. Investigations into 1MDB dealings previously found that approximately US$4.3 billion is unaccounted for.

According to Google Trends, the rising queries over the past day included "najib prison", "najib razak di penjara" (Najib imprisoned), "najib didapati bersalah" (Najib found guilty), "najib 坐牢" (Najib jailed) and "bossku". Most of the searches came from Putrajaya, KL, Selangor, and Negeri Sembilan.

Meanwhile, statistics from Truescope showed that reactions to Najib's news exceeded 1.5 million engagements on Facebook, Instagram, and TikTok in Malaysia on 23 August. More than 50% of online sentiments expressed support for the court's decision to sentence Najib while some continued to throw their weight behind Najib. Meanwhile, there were also sentiments expressing relief that the case has come to a close. Separately, Najib is also trending on Singapore's Twitter with 225k tweets.

Interestingly, chatter surrounding the Super Ring snack spiked yesterday while also experiencing a rise on 21 August. Super Ring is known to be Najib's favourite snack and in May 2020, he posted a photo of him eating it. That was an attempt to troll fomer PM Mahathir Mohamad and four other MPs from being fired from Bersatu. Months later when Najib was found guilty for the 1MDB scandal, many Malaysian opposition politicians ridiculed him by posting pictures of themselves eating the Super Ring snack.

truescope super ring

Ths time round, netizens did not hold back. Malaysian graphic designer Fahmi Reza, who is famous for his political satire, published a cartoon on social media with the caption "Bekalan buat Bossku" which loosely translates to "provisions for the boss". It featured an image of the Super Snack with a cartoon of Najib in an orange prison outfit. Meanwhile, the iconic orange rings were replaced with orange handcuffs. Alongside the snack were other important necessities such as Lux soap and Colgate toothpaste and toothbrush.

https://twitter.com/kuasasiswa/status/1562025534921457665

Malaysians were also teasing him online, with some calling 23 August "Super Ring Day" while another said this was a special day worth celebrating with Super Ring.

https://twitter.com/NazFarMdRah/status/1562277004430307328

https://twitter.com/the_REAL_deal88/status/1559516011073658880

https://twitter.com/amaraeish09/status/1562109848614866945

https://twitter.com/arytonsoliano/status/1562075429455818753

https://twitter.com/faruqmcgrath/status/1561957817183240192

According to Truescope Singapore's commercial director Kelvin Koh, netizens were also concerned about the prices of Super Ring increasing and that it will go out of stock. Meanwhile, AEON Malaysia also seemed to have jumped on the chatter around Super Ring by announcing that there was stock for the popular snack. While the Facebook post accumulated thousands of engagement, Koh said it was subsequently removed. Nonetheless, it was lauded by the China Press for its creative marketing, Koh added.

Meanwhile, according to Meltwater, where were 1.75k mentions of the topic online in Malaysia betwen 18 to 24 August. Similar to Truescope's statistics, the number of mentions spiked on 23 August and is still rising as of today. Among the list of trending keywords include "malam ni", "join beli super ring", and "jenis tepati janji".

meltwater najib stats 1