‘If I can’t change it, might as well joke about it’: Nicole Choo on body-shaming comments comparing her to Roblox

I was scrolling through TikTok when I saw a video of Nicole Choo baring her midriff and doing a dance trend.

@nicolealexachoo 👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻 #bouncewhenshewalk ♬ Bounce When She Walk

It looks like your run-of-the-mill content on the dancing app… or so I thought.

Open the comment section and behold: a tsunami of comments calling her a Roblox character.

Several other videos of her on the clock app also gotten similar comments, but it goes beyond looking like a Roblox character.

TikTok users have also said that she reminds them of Minecraft characters and Monsters Inc’s one-eyed monster, Mike Wazowski.

   

If you have no idea what these characters look like:

Yeah, it’s not exactly a compliment to be compared to these cartoon characters.

And as much as I hate to admit it, I kinda see the resemblance (sorry Nicole)—and so does she.

If you can’t beat them, join them

The 24-year-old influencer been taking these comments in her stride though, engaging with some of them using wit and humour:

@nicolealexachoo Replying to @user ♬ original sound – Nicole Choo

“It helps me, you know, with my clients,” Nicole jokingly said, referring to those comments.

While I was mentally searching for the best, most inoffensive way to phrase a question about the unsavoury comments she’s received about her body shape, the petite influencer laughed it off and said:

“People say, ‘Oh, your torso is so short’ [and] call me Mike Wazowski.”

She shrugged and continued: “If you’re going to be all defensive and stuff, they’re going to attack you more. I cannot change my body, right?”

“Even if I lose weight, I won’t get the build of, for example, Kendall Jenner. If I cannot change it, might as well make a joke out of it.”

She also grinned widely as she told me that her birthday cake this year was Mike Wazowski-themed.

@nicolealexachoo and also im honoured cuz monsters inc is my fav cartoon😬💚 #mikewazowski #birthday ♬ original sound – Nicole Choo

Here’s a clearer picture of her cake.

I nodded in agreement, impressed with Nicole’s nonchalant charm and her decision to take the high road.

But I have to say, such character development is expected given her colourful experience in the influencer industry thus far.

After more than a decade on the internet, Nicole has:

• Gone through a very public breakup
• Published a poetry book titled nineteen, which was mocked by the internet, including other influencers
• Started her own F&B business Krazy Kroissants
• Embarked on a career as a DJ
• Made YouTube videos, occasionally featuring her family members and past boyfriends

That 2016 makeup tutorial video

A YouTube video that catapulted her to further fame was her makeup tutorial in 2016 (yes, that was seven years ago).

With over 500,000 views, it is still one of the most viral videos on her YouTube channel.

In the era of full glam makeup, it happened to be one of the first times that the then 17-year-old teen showed her bare face.

Which made her an open target for a lot of unsolicited comments insulting her bare face.

“It actually really hurt my self-esteem quite a bit, especially because I was a teenager growing up,” she recalled.

“I had, like, cystic acne and I was going through puberty, ok? It really hurt my self-esteem so I guess I leaned a lot [on] makeup.”

Parents almost always supportive

Again, as a reminder, Nicole was just 17.

Her parents gave her their blessings to drop out of polytechnic to become a full-time influencer—with some caveats, of course.

She was expected to be fully independent and stop receiving an allowance from them.

Although her parents have largely been supportive, Nicole said there was a time when they didn’t want her to pursue this as a career.

“They were against it because they saw how much the comments affected me when I was younger and felt it was not very healthy for me,” she explained.

Called a “sl*t” at 14

However, she has been on the receiving end of unsavoury comments even before she officially became a content creator.

Her first encounter happened at around 14 years old, when she had just started dabbling with Instagram.

 

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A post shared by Nicole Choo | 🎧 DJ Nicole Alexa (@nicole.choo)

This was also around the same time when Ask.fm, a platform where users can anonymously ask questions, gained popularity.

Instead of just anonymous questions, however, she also received remarks calling her names like “b*tch” and “sl*t”.

She said: “They would say really mean things and mention my parents like, ‘It’s such a disgrace that your parents have you as a daughter.'”

Told to get a “small waist” for gymnastics

It also didn’t help that her gymnastics coach in secondary school often told Nicole that she was fat.

Her coach compared her to the other gymnasts and conditioned her to “get that small waist” to look nice in a leotard.

Nicole weighed 39kg and stood 150cm tall, which makes her underweight on the body mass index (BMI) scale.

In order to lose more weight, she began to skip meals.

“She gave me an eating disorder, bro,” the influencer realised.

“When you have to juggle that part (negative comments on social media) of your life, plus school, parents and going through the phase of rebellion […] if you put everything together, it’s a lot for a 14-year-old to handle.”

It got so much for her that she resorted to self-harm.

Does she advocate for body positivity?

Well, duh.

“I feel like so many teenagers… even people our parents’ age struggle with body dysmorphia. Even my mom [even though] she works out every day and I think she looks great, but she still looks in the mirror and says ‘oh, I’m too fat.'”

It’s very important to cultivate self-confidence. You have to be self-aware first to work on it. It’s very important to make body positivity known, especially to younger kids.”

Calling her growth a process she had to go through, Nicole wouldn’t change anything about her journey as an influencer.

“I’m doing what I really love to do. From social media, I grew to become a DJ. I feel like I’m living my dream life.”

“As long as you don’t let these haters bring you down, it’s much easier to deal with everything else,” she added.

@babelfish.asia Mike Wazowski is cute tho 🥺 @Nicole Choo #tiktoksg #roblox #fyp ♬ Monsters, Inc

Top image by Fasiha Nazren and from @nicolealexachoo on TikTok