YouTube users have ridiculed the song <i>Show Huay Show Suay</i>, written by Deputy Commerce Minister Nattawut Saikuar to promote traditional grocery stores, with reviews describing it as a waste of government time and money, and noting that it sounds suspiciously similar to <i>Black Superman</i> by Johnny Wakelin.
The Commerce Ministry uploaded Show Huay Show Suay to YouTube last Saturday (June 22) to celebrate the two-month mark in Mr Nattawut's campaign to encourage consumers to buy goods from traditional grocery shops. In the video, Mr Nattawut, commerce officials and grocery retailers sing and dance to the song.
As of 11am Wednesday, 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 commenter, nb5, said: "This is retarded". Another, ss10110tk, wrote: "The deputy commerce minister is terrible". "Nattawat reang" wrote of the song: "Tragic, can't they find anything better to do?"
A number of comments pointed out that the song sounds similar to the 1975 hit <i>Black Superman (Muhammad Ali)</i> by English artist Johnny Wakelin and The Kinshasa Band. The comments claimed the ministry could be sued for copyright violation.