It’s a phenomenon that happens every four years (actually, make that two – the Euro Championships cause this as well): strong adult men who laugh in the face of viruses and are almost never sick, suddenly and mysteriously calling in sick repeatedly for one month. Some call it footballitis; but it looks like the Malaysian Prime Minister has coined a term that will be used very often from today onwards.
Youth and Sports Minister Khairy Jamaluddin, an active Twitter user, took to the social network earlier today to joke about this common phenomenon that happens during every major football tournament. Khairy, who was actually present at Dataran Merdeka early this morning to catch the opening match of the 2014 World Cup between Brazil and Croatia as part of the Fiesta Samba Brasil 2014, jokingly tweeted to Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Tun Razak that he has a high fever and would not be able to work for the day:
: @NajibRazak Boss, Saya demam panas, badan sakit tak boleh bangun sejak semalam. Maaf tak dpt kerja hari ni, esok hantar slip MC #CubaNasib
— Khairy Jamaluddin 🇲🇾🌺 (@Khairykj) June 12, 2014
Our Prime Minister, not known for creative use of hashtags, retorted later in the day; sarcastically noting that Khairy was present in the Cabinet meeting earlier today, before delivering the hashtag of the day – #MCDitolak (sick leave not approved).
.@KhairyKJ Glad you felt well enough to come for Cabinet Meeting #MCDitolak
— Mohd Najib Tun Razak (@NajibRazak) June 13, 2014
Our Youth and Sports Minister in action at the Bend It Past KJ event earlier this morning. #KeeperCekap, anyone?
The Prime Minister’s tweet was clearly a hit, reaching over 3200 retweets thus far. His hashtag, however, is even more successful; now trending on Twitter, the #MCDitolak hashtag hit a peak of close to 700 retweets per hour earlier today. Khairy would later screenshot the conversation and tweeting it; that tweet itself received over 7700 retweets at the time of writing.
So…anyone looking to #CubaNasib after the England vs Italy match on early Monday morning?
(Source: Khairy Jamaluddin (Twitter))
