Ask any second-year polytechnic student what he or she does during their free time. Most would say that they would either be hanging out with friends and family, catching up on their studies or simply pursuing their personal interests.
But for this trio – Kevin Lim (also known as Sage), Lim Zylia and Ng Jing Yan, all second-year Diploma in Mass Communication students, this is not always the case. Instead of relaxing on weekends, they would sometimes be out and about working on video shoots and other online content for their start-up social media company: The Meh Bunch (TMB).
First conceptualised in May last year, TMB has since worked on projects, events and collaborated with companies on paid assignments. Although they started churning out content for less than a year now, their videos have already gained some attention online, with the most popular one getting more than 99,000 views on TikTok.
The team behind TMB is young and ambitious – they aim to continue growing their company and content creation skills, though this did not come without its initial challenges.
Bunching together
As DMC students, TMB’s founding members naturally had their interests closely aligned with media and its range of types and formats. They too have had their fair share of consuming local online content, particularly that from well-known lifestyle publication company TheSmartLocal (TSL).
Having watched its videos – both from the main and sister channels like Zula and Eatbook – since young, TSL’s humble origins and steady flow of interesting content were what first inspired the members to form one of their own.
“They (TSL) started out very small before eventually becoming very popular in Singapore and eventually branching out to create other sister companies. That’s what we hope to achieve for The Meh Bunch as well,” shared co-founder Zylia.
“We want to become more established locally and hopefully be the ones that youths think of immediately when wondering which local social media influencers to follow or look up to.”
Sage, TMB’s main founder, also noted Singaporeans’ perception of the country, adding that some “think Singapore has become boring”. In his eyes, he wishes to not just prove otherwise, but also help romanticise the little red dot.
TMB’s conceptualisation further came to light after Sage’s – who does freelance emceeing on the side – external mentor and advisor encouraged him to recruit members and set up a social media company.
With the idea being set in stone, he first recruited his classmate Zylia, whom he thought “checked all of his boxes” due to her good work ethic, trustworthiness and competence.
Jing Yan was added to the team a few months later. She had initially only intended to assist in one of TMB’s projects to “test the waters”, but was later pulled in after the remaining members deemed her fit for work with them.
Together, they form the start-up’s pillars and its producers, editors and talents.
Starting from ground up
Making one’s dreams into a reality and building a name for oneself is a huge milestone, though the TMB members had to tackle obstacle after obstacle when working towards this during their early days.
As Mass Communication students, the three of them are more used to working with established brands and companies on problem statements or industry projects. Naturally, this meant that setting up one of their very own was a first that did not come easy.
“We had to start from square one and come up with our own identity, logo, voice, what content we should produce and more,” Zylia said in an interview with The Republican Post. “Thankfully, we had an advisor to guide us, but even then it was so confusing as there was a lot of work to do on our end.”
One of the first things they needed to decide on was the start-up’s name, which spawned from the founders throwing out words and using them to somehow string together a “community-like” phrase.
Sage chuckled when recalling this moment. He said: “I think we stuck with it because it was quite relatable to us, in a sense where we aren’t the prettiest or most talented, but rather just be ‘Meh’. This isn’t so negative though! It could also be used to convey surprise like ‘Really meh?’”
“By choosing ‘Meh’, we position ourselves as down-to-earth. Our videos are not super high quality and neither are we special, unique or better than anyone else in any way,” Zylia added.
Having learnt media and content creation skills through modules like Video Storytelling & Production and Digital Media Content & Management, the three TMB members had not much issues with content ideas, scheduling shoot days or approaching profiles when starting out.
Instead, their challenges laid more in figuring out their team dynamic, adjusting to everyone’s work style and editing disagreements.
No two people’s speed, prior experiences or opinions are the same, and the three members are not exceptions to this. For example, Sage is the quickest and most experienced in editing videos, while co-founders Zylia and Jing Yan take from two days to a week to obtain similar results.
“On his end, he would have to adjust to our speed and understand that we’re not always able to work as quickly as he does…He’s the one that has to vet through our videos, and thus has to agree that “Okay, they cannot edit as fast as I can, but I’m willing to wait”,” Zylia explained.
Regardless of how familiar they were with one another’s qualities based on school assignments, it still took time for them to build mutual trust, team cohesiveness and manage conflicts effectively when producing content for TMB’s social media platforms.
“There were issues with team members and cohesiveness because it is a pretty different experience than school projects as we’re being paid to do these projects, meaning a high amount of professionalism needs to be put into it,” Sage mentioned in his interview. “I think we had several meetings just to readjust the team and bring up issues that each member can improve on. This helps us to check the blind spots that we might not have noticed and make TMB better!”
Building connections, seeking new opportunities
As time went on, the TMB members eventually got the hang of things and were able to take on projects at a faster, larger and more creative scale.
What first started as promoting “hidden gems” around Singapore soon turned into collaborating with organisations and clients to cover exclusive events. The start-up is currently still less than a year old, but has already gotten opportunities to attend media events such as the Oppenheimer movie premiere and get a sneak preview of The Creation of HeeDong exhibition.
More recently, TMB collaborated with Singapore Comic Con (SGCC) and anime collectible company RYU STUDIO to boost hype around the event and the latter’s figurine unveiling. This involved hosting a ticket giveaway and being onsite to cover both elements on their social media platforms.
Sage attributed these opportunities to the team’s “connections built prior to The Meh Bunch’s formation”, such as his freelancing gigs and contacts.
Aside from that, TMB also comes up with their own content ideas, which mostly derive from promoting trendy food spots or activities to do around Singapore.
“Being Singaporean youths ourselves, we would know what people our age want to know or want to eat, so it’s really based on our own knowledge and experience,” they explained.
Having done video projects from both sides of the spectrum, the TMB members mutually agreed that they still have a soft spot for the content they started out doing due to it being “very much The Meh Bunch style”.
Finding balance
Despite their regular work at TMB, there is a constant reminder hovering over the three members that they are still full-time students.
They have to ensure that school and their personal lives take priority, regardless of how passionate they are in pushing content out and elevating the start-up’s online presence.
With so many responsibilities on hand, they are occasionally overwhelmed by the workload and find it difficult to juggle all their responsibilities, much less find time to maintain social relationships.
Zylia bashfully found herself guilty of this. “I find myself neglecting my friends by accident whenever I prioritise my work over them, which happens a lot. If we ever plan to meet, there are times where I would bail or cancel on them due to my work commitments.”
This does not mean that they regret the time spent at TMB though. When asked to reflect on their start-up journey, the members all expressed pride on how far they have come since debuting the company’s first video, and hope to push themselves and TMB to greater heights in the new year.
“We need to strive to be better. Not better than our competitors, but better than our past selves. We need to always be improving, and hopefully our future content will also reflect this improvement and change,” Zylia said.
