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By Mihar Dias October 2026
Once in while I meet people who make you smile without asking for a single sen, like those in Prompters Malaya.
I suspect that is precisely what they are doing to us netizens. Giving us a little happiness in a world where politicians, inflation and the daily circus of human behaviour provide more than enough reasons to reach for the nearest bottle of Panadol.
Today, I came across an image that transported me straight back to 1988, the year I left Penang and moved on to wander the streets of Kuala Lumpur. https://www.facebook.com/share/p/191QCGsYL2/
Those were the days when life was considerably less complicated, although we did not know it at the time.
I remember buying apam balik in Bangsar, enjoying the simple pleasure of eating something delicious without first having to scan a QR code, download an application, register an account or surrender my personal information to some mysterious organisation that probably knows more about me than my wife does.
The scene reproduced by Prompters Malaya looked so familiar that it brought a smile to my face. There was just one little detail that did not belong in 1988.
The ubiquitous QR code. https://www.facebook.com/share/p/191QCGsYL2/
In those days, if you wanted to buy something, you took out your wallet. If you wanted to know the price, you asked the seller. If you wanted to pay, you handed over your money. The transaction required neither a smartphone nor a software update.
Today, we have apparently progressed to the point where even nostalgia must be digitised.
Some clever soul had reproduced an image from a bygone era and inserted a QR code, an invention that would have looked like an alien artefact to most Malaysians in 1988. The result was funny precisely because it was almost believable.
Almost.
And that is the genius of it.
The picture poses a question, inviting us to examine what we are seeing and decide whether we remember it. Before long, people are smiling, commenting and sharing it. At our regular teh tarik gatherings in Bukit Damansara, the discussion predictably begins with someone announcing, with the satisfaction of a man who has discovered the cure for cancer, “I saw that first!”
There is always one.
He saw it before you. He shared it before you. He understood the joke before you. And if you happen to have seen it earlier, he will probably insist that what he saw was the original, whereas yours was merely a copy of a copy.
Welcome to the competitive world of digital nostalgia, where even remembering the past has become a race for recognition.
But let us give credit where credit is due. Prompters Malaya has understood something that many people in advertising, marketing and public relations seem to overlook. You do not always have to sell people something. Sometimes, you only have to make them feel something.
A smile is a remarkably effective marketing tool.
We are bombarded daily by advertisements promising a better life, politicians promising a better country, influencers promising a better body, and financial gurus promising to make us rich before breakfast. Everybody wants our attention, our money or our approval.
Then along comes an old-fashioned scene with a modern QR code, and we stop scrolling.
No lengthy lecture. No grand announcement. No need to explain why the world has gone mad.
Just a picture, a little incongruity and a moment of recognition.
Perhaps this is why nostalgia works so well. It allows us to revisit a time when our lives seemed simpler, even if we have conveniently forgotten the inconveniences. Memory is a selective historian. It preserves the good bits, edits out the unpleasant ones and occasionally adds a QR code to make the story commercially relevant.
Those of us who remember Kuala Lumpur in the late 1980s can summon up a world of roadside stalls, familiar faces, cash transactions and conversations that did not require everyone to stare at a screen.
We did not need to photograph every meal to prove that we had eaten. We did not need to upload pictures of every gathering to establish that we had friends. And if we wanted to tell someone a funny story, we could do so without first asking them to like, share and subscribe.
Of course, the past was not paradise. We had our problems, our frustrations and our share of foolish people. Human beings have never required technological assistance to behave foolishly.
What has changed is the speed at which we can now distribute our foolishness.
A joke that once travelled from one coffee shop to another can now circle the country before the first teh tarik has cooled. A picture can become a talking point among thousands of strangers who have never met, yet feel compelled to announce that they remember the original scene.
And somewhere in this great digital marketplace, somebody is watching the engagement figures rise.
Which brings me back to Prompters Malaya.
Are they simply entertaining us? Are they promoting something? Are they building a following? Perhaps the answer is all three. I cannot claim to know their precise intentions from one picture. But if their objective is to attract attention and put a smile on people's faces, they appear to have found a rather effective formula.
Make us remember. Make us laugh. Give us something to talk about.
The commercial world has spent millions trying to understand consumer behaviour. Yet a clever juxtaposition of yesterday and today can accomplish what an expensive advertising campaign sometimes cannot.
It reminds us that beneath our modern digital sophistication, we remain creatures of habit, memory and vanity. We want to recognise things before others do. We want to share discoveries. We want to belong to a conversation.
And, above all, we want to tell our friends, “I saw that first!”
At the next teh tarik session in Bukit Damansara, I fully expect somebody to produce the picture on his smartphone and announce that he was among the earliest to see it.
The rest of us will smile politely, order another round and allow him his moment of glory.
After all, at our age, there are worse things to boast about.
Just remember one thing: if you are buying apam balik in a scene supposedly set in 1988, do not scan the QR code unless you are prepared to discover that the vendor has been running a digital payment system for thirty-eight years.
That would be progress indeed.
And if Prompters Malaya has managed to make us smile while quietly reminding us how easily our attention can be captured, perhaps we should thank them.
They have given us a laugh, a memory and a conversation starter.
In today's world, that is no small achievement.
Now, who saw it first?
Mihar Dias (mihardias@gmail.com) is a content creator under the Newswav Creator programme, where you get to express yourself, be a citizen journalist, and at the same time monetize your content & reach millions of users on Newswav. Log in to creator.newswav.com and become a Newswav Creator now!
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