A well-known Thai Youtuber has drawn attention on Thai Children’s Day (annual day of the child with usually many children’s activities but now mainly online activities due to Corona) with a video of her visit to children in a remote village in the mountains around Chiang Mai.
Of video Titled “Happy Children’s Day: Pimrypie’s Gift for the Mountain Children”, it shows viewers how children in Mae Koeb village near Omkoi, a district in Chiang Mai province, live. The village would not provide electricity and the living conditions of the people are appalling. None of the children have shoes, education is provided in the open air, meals are one-sided and consist mainly of rice and chili paste, and mice are considered a delicacy.
Youtuber Pimrypie donates solar panels, shoes for all children, a TV in the video and is responsible for building a vegetable greenhouse and accompanying plants to grow in the greenhouse. She says she decided to do this after she discovered that the children of this village ‘live without dreams’.
In the video she points to the TV and asks the children “What’s this called? Have you seen this before? ”. The children answer no to both questions.
The video drew a lot of attention in social media and sparked a heated debate about inequality in Thailand in general and lack of development in rural Thailand in particular. In a short period of time, the video received 5.5 million views, had 570,000 likes and more than 46,000 comments, while #Pimrypie was retweeted over a million times on Twitter.
The comments especially appreciated the maker, her commitment to the poor, and criticized the government for inequality as seen in the video. The government’s development projects to combat poverty were also questioned, with some saying “it is better to rely on each other than the government.”
At the same time, the video was also criticized. There is said to be electricity in the village, which had been installed two years earlier. And in December 2020, solar panels would have been donated to households by a foundation.
The local district office in Chiang Mai province was not happy with the video and banned donations. School teachers were no longer allowed to accept donations from outsiders or provide negative information. However, this order was withdrawn within two days, explaining that there was ‘miscommunication’. Since then, the office has not been available for any comment.
There were also several academics who described Pimrypie as’ someone from the social middle class who ‘wants to save people without any knowledge of inequality in society’. It goes without saying that the subject was grist to the mill of government critics.
Pimrypie, whose full name is Pimradaporn Benjawattanapat, is a 30-year-old online saleswoman with her own YouTube channel where she reviews topics like makeup, travel, cooking and food. She is known for her direct way of communicating, without hiding her anger and frustrations. Her YouTube channel has almost 3 million followers and on Facebook she has more than 6 million. In addition to her millions of followers, there are of course also many who do not appreciate her directness and regard her public donations as publicity stunts.
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