On 2 March, The Straits Times (ST) reported about an anti-crime operation at a KTV lounge at Orchard Road that led to the arrest of 14 men and 48 women.
During the raid, a man who had an e-vaporiser or vape handed the device over to the Health Sciences Authority (HSA). However, he refused to provide his details after police questioning.
Another man in the room, rushing to his defence, yelled out: “We are not gangsters. We are ACS boys.”
The phrase has since gone viral online.
ACS stands for Anglo-Chinese School, a school widely known to have produced national icons such as current President Tharman Shanmugaratnam and Olympic swimmer Joseph Schooling.
With such information in mind, one Facebook user decided to challenge the joke by countering that ACS boys don’t all end up getting caught in police raids.
Others took it upon themselves to design t-shirts with the phrase plastered across the front.
Source: Kelvin Phang on Facebook
Anyone familiar with the ACS school t-shirts would do a double-take after seeing the above clothing.
Another creative individual went a step further and designed a colourful t-shirt complete with elements like a microphone and sound system that somehow tie back to the incident that made the phrase go viral.
Singaporean blogger and ACS alumni Lee Kin Mun, better known as mrbrown, shared his thoughts on the KTV bust, saying he was “a bit disappointed” an ACS boy was caught.
Singaporean author Gwee Li Sui also took a dig at the viral phrase.
“How many ACS boys does it take to change a lightbulb? None. We are not electricians. We are ACS boys,” he posted on Facebook.
In a subsequent post, Mr Gwee talked about the recent case of the Italian Ambassador of Singapore calling out Amoy restaurant for referencing the word ‘Mafia’ in their event name.
He captioned the post, “This restaurant better not be owned by ACS boys.”
Source: Gwee Li Sui on Facebook
Netizens also took to Reddit to express their confusion about the use of the phrase.
Photo: Reddit
How long this new trend will last and how creative people will get with it remains to be seen.
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Featured image adapted from JK Saravan on Facebook and Anglo-Chinese School Primary on Facebook.
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