Dee Kosh (born November 2 1988) is the social media moniker of Darryl Ian Koshy, a YouTube Star and Radio Personality based in Singapore.

Dee Kosh was born on November 2, 1988 in the Philippines and was raised there. His family is of Malaysian, Indian and Chinese descent, though he has stated that he identifies as "Malay by heart".^[2] He later settled in Singapore. He has two younger brothers.

During his years in school, Dee Kosh was teased for his skin colour and he began telling jokes to overcome his insecurities that stemmed from the teasing.^[3] He is known for his straightforward and loud personality.

Dee Kosh first gained popularity through YouTube before deejaying for local radio station 987FM. As of June 2019, he has over 190k followers on Instagram,^[4] and 206k followers on Twitter,^[5] 308k subscribers on YouTube^[6] and 141k likes on his Facebook page.^[2]

Dee Kosh initially gained fame through YouTube.

Although his YouTube channel was created in 2006, he only begun uploading videos in 2011.

He regularly uploads comedy skits, vlogs and storytime videos. In his videos, he sometimes dresses up as various characters such as 'Xiao Tina', 'Lechme' and 'Ria Warna'. These characters are meant to be exaggerated Singaporean stereotypes of a female Chinese influencer, an Indian lady, and a Malay woman respectively. His most viewed videos include "Singaporean Style (Gangnam Style Parody)" with 3.2 million views^[7] and "Shawn Mendes Reacts to Thirsty Tweets" with 1.8 million views.^[8]

On his channel, he freuently collaborates with other well-known YouTubers such as Singaporean blogger and influencer Xiaxue and American a cappella group Pentatonix.^[9] On top of this, he has also interviewed many international stars including Fifth Harmony, Hailee Steinfeld and 5 Seconds of Summer (5SOS).^[6] In addition to his personal YouTube Channel, he hosts two shows on local YouTube channel N.O.C Night Owl Cinematics, "Food King" and "Do It For The Money".^[10] He had been featured on other YouTube channels including TheSmartLocal and ZYRUP.

Dee Kosh’s foray into deejaying begun in April 2012 when he was offered a role as the host for 987FM’s “Say It With Music” segment. He hosted the segment until January 2013 when he started co-hosting another segment named "The Double D Show" with DJ Divian Nair.^[11] During his time at 987FM, he had interviewed several celebrities including South Korea pop group B.A.P, South Korean pop star Jay Park and American singer-songwriter Adam Lambert. In 2014, he left 987FM to join Power98FM. As of February 2019, he has a show on weekday nights from 9PM - 12AM called "Up All Night".^[12]

In 2015, Dee Kosh was nominated for two awards in the Singapore Social Media Awards (SSMAs).

Held in May 2015 and hosted by Aaron Jansen and Cleo Chew, the SSMAs was an independently run online awards show acknowledging Singaporean online content creators.

The results show spanned across 3 episodes on YouTube, accompanied by additional interview videos.^[13] His video titled “Types of Annoying People to Travel With” was nominated for 'Collab of the Year'.

Additionally, his series “Doctor Dee” was among the three nominees for ‘Online Series of the Year’.^[14]

In 2013, Dee Kosh co-hosted the 2013 FHM Models Top Ten event at Bugis Junction as part of "The Double D Show" with Divian Nair.^[15]

He was also one of the 10 emcees for the Singapore National Day Parade, 2015: Celebrations at The Float, jointly organised by SAFRA and People's Association.^[16] The same year, he was the host for Asia's Got Talent 2015's segment titled "Fresh Off the Stage Interview with Dee" where he interviewed participants backstage.^[17]

Most recently, in 2019, he hosted the Youth Music Awards (YMA) with a line-up of performances including local artist Charlie Lim. The closed event was organized by *SCAPE and INVASION Singapore.^[18]

In 2018, local YouTuber Nicole Choo released her book titledNineteen by Nicole Chooas part of the BuySingLit national movement. Following the release, Dee Kosh and local social media personality Hirzi Zulkiflie published a YouTube video criticizing the book. In the video, they had pointed out that Nicole Choo’s work read more like "social media captions" instead of the intended poetry.^[19] However, the video was later taken down due to a copyright issue. Subsequently, Dee Kosh and Hirzi Zulkiflie posted an apology to Nicole Choo on YouTube titled "WE'RE SORRY NICOLE CHOO!!" on May 25, 2018.^[20]

The Associate Editor of Rice Media, Julian Wong addressed Dee Kosh’s video through an article titled "At 19, Nicole Choo is A Published Poet.

So What?".

In the article, he argues that it was unfair for them to have undermined Nicole Choo’s work in such an insensitive and crass manner.

Julian spoke out against the way Dee Kosh and Hirzi commented on her book, stating that at times their commentary "... came uncomfortably close to sexual harassment and cyberbullying...".^[21] The article also included encouraging sentiments from local Youth Poet Ambassador Pooja Nansi who felt that poetry was subjective and that everyone should have the opportunity to express their creativity.

On 18 October 2018, Dee Kosh posted a tweet reading “Unpopular Opinion : BTS’s songs all sound the same. I need something fresh! Come on now….”.^[22] The comment offended the K-pop group's fans and they responded negatively to his comments on Twitter. Subsequently, it appeared that Dee Kosh’s YouTube channel was deleted due to this incident. He posted a video in which he seemed distressed due to the hateful comments he had been receiving from BTS fans, called ARMY. He also mentioned that the fans had gone too far by emailing his bosses at Power98FM about the incident.^[23] However, Dee Kosh himself later revealed that the whole stunt was a social experiment intended to provoke a reaction from the BTS fanbase. Through this experiment, he wanted to show the consequences of the 'mob mentality’ prevalent in Singapore's society.

Singaporean blogger Alvinology responded to this by speaking out against his social experiment.

He stated that Dee Kosh was equally insensitive towards the fans’ feelings through his replies.

Furthermore, Alvinology stated that his social experiment lacked integrity as the fans were not aware of their assessment and he was taking advantage of their responses.

Apart from this, Dee Kosh also faced backlash from another local site TheOnlineCitizen who felt that his social experiment was merely a 'publicity stunt' and misleading for his fans.^[24]

Dee Kosh spoke out about local media personality Eden Ang’s alleged sexual harassment involving his personal assistant on Instagram Live. He revealed that the evidence that was sent to him by the alleged victim included screenshots of conversations she had with Eden Ang. He then uploaded these Instagram Live videos onto his YouTube channel, sparking more responses from the people involved the incident which prompted the unfolding of the entire scandal.^[25]

In June 2020, Kosh has found himself in a difficult situation over his past use of racist language even as he spoke up in support of BLM and about racism in Singapore.

He apologised and deleted numerous old tweets dating back to 2013 after netizens criticised him for using a derogatory term used to refer to African-Americans.

In two tweets on 31 May, he also called out Singaporeans who use the “N word”.

“Singaporeans kids using the N word is an issue because kids in Singapore don’t have CONSEQUENCES after saying the word.

So you gotta call them out,” he said in one post.^[27]

In a podcast released on June 7, Dee Kosh said he “didn’t know the gravity of the word” when he used it in the past.

“I used to very openly use the N-word because I grew up listening to a lot of Black songs, I grew up with Black culture.

“There were some tweets that were pulled up from way back and I’ve already apologised for them because I was ignorant.”^[27]