A trio of content creators from Malaysia have gone viral, and for all the wrong reasons.

The reel, which has since been deleted, features three influencers (aluk_77,kaijie_66, and olympiccc_55) feasting on fried chicken at KFC. They cleaned their chicken to the bone, with Aluk even pretending to brush his teeth with the bone of the drumstick.

Aluk, who has 138k followers on Instagram, then declares: “We can’t waste food. We’ve decided to donate these chicken bones to the needy. We’re doing charity today."

After shoving the chicken bones into a packet of rice, they set off to find someone “in need”.  

Cut to a scene where they approach a homeless man sleeping on a sidewalk. “We’re going to give him the delicious chicken bones,” he quips.

They hand the homeless man the packet of rice, who appears to be shocked upon finding out he was given chicken bones.

After bidding farewell to the homeless man, they ended their video by showing their pet dog eating leftover chicken meat.

Unsurprisingly, a video made in such bad taste has since received intense backlash. Angry netizens bashed the trio for “dehumanising” the homeless man, and for being completely tone deaf.

“Pranks are supposed to be funny,” read one comment, while others dubbed their video “rage bait”.

Other Malaysian influencers also dropped their two cents on the situation, with many asking the trio to “reflect on their actions”.

Addressing the backlash, Aluk posted a follow-up video to explain that the “chicken bone incident” was scripted, and that the homeless man was in on the act.

He clarified that they had actually given the homeless man a complete meal with rice and two pieces of chicken after filming the video, and included a clip of the conversation as proof. 

“From the beginning, our intention was to help the people in society. We let people think that we gave him chicken bones, but we did ask the homeless guy if he was willing to act with us, and he agreed. We did not give him chicken bones to eat, we gave him a full meal. Please give us a chance to give back to society, and we will do more good deeds to help the homeless,” said Aluk before ending with an apology.

The trio then appeared in a separate video, where they apologised to “all Malaysians”. Aluk explained the situation again, emphasising that the homeless guy “knew about [the act] from the start”.

“We’ve long thought of making videos about doing charity, and this is the very first one we’ve posted. We did not expect it to cause such a storm, and that is on us. Following this, we will sincerely give back to society, and make more meaningful videos. I hope everyone will forgive us, sorry,” said Aluk.

Two apology videos did little to appease the angry mob.

Many believed their concept was “inhumane”, regardless of whether it was scripted or not. They did not understand how giving a homeless man chicken bones, then feeding the meat to the dog, could constitute a “video about charity”.

They were basically clout-chasing, and their intentions, not right.

“It’s not important whether you were acting or not… the main thing is that your methods are completely not useful in spreading any positivity at all,” explained one commenter.

Netizens also demanded that they permanently sign off from the internet, with some even tagging KFC to inform them that their brand was used in such a “disgusting” way.

How will they redeem themselves from this car crash?

Photos: r/malaysia/ Reddit, aluk_77/ Instagram