Yesterday I helped out Cilisos with their workshop on how to engage with the Malay audience. I wrote and presented a section titled “Cultural Contexts in Malay Content”, so I thought I’d share the highlights here.
But first, here’s my gripe about us (media practitioners, NGOs, activists). I lost count of how many times I heard the argument that “the Malays just don’t get it”. That they are simple-minded, indoctrinated, passive, only consume trash content, and the list goes on.
Yet, hardly any attempts were made to understand these grassroots Malays in the first place — and more importantly, why are they the way they are? As a result, these stereotypes, shortcuts, and arrogance have created content that feels disconnected, condescending, and careless.
So, here’s my attempt. First and foremost, it’s important to acknowledge that most of us are influenced by Western moral philosophies that advocate for individualism, personal empowerment, universalism and so forth. In contrast, the grassroots Malays are deeply relational – they identify as their communal roles or their relationships (a spouse/parent/child etc) before themselves as individuals.
I’m not arguing which one is more correct, that’s not the point. I’m saying that you can’t apply Western moral frameworks onto Malay audience and expect resonance.
So what is the Malay audience about, then? How can you reach out to them and make them feel heard, so they’ll be open for a conversation? Here’s a non-exhaustive list that I made for the workshop. I would love to elaborate on each one of them in this post, but this is as much as my attention span can churn out for now lol.
Cilisos will run this workshop again in the future. Go ask Iqbal. Or you can reach out to me personally because I much prefer the IRL yapping. Okbai.
Originally posted on
July 24, 2025