Volume 11, Issue 1, 2021 Asian Journal of Applied Communication e-ISSN: 2682-7506 SOCIAL MEDIA PARTICIPATION: THE UNTOLD HIDDEN TALENT DURING PANDEMIC Azian Muhamad Adzmi 1,2* , Liyana Mohd Ramly 3 , Syahida Mohd Nazri 3,4 , Nik Fatinah N. Mohd Farid 2,5 and Muhammad Asyraf Abdul Rahman 2,6 1 Cardiff University 2 Universiti Utara Malaysia 3 UniversitiTeknologi MARA 4 UNITAR International University 5 University of Leeds 6 University of Bristol Email: MuhamadAdzmiA@cardiff.ac.uk, Liyana_ramly@uitm.edu.my, syahida@unitar.my, scnfnm@leeds.ac.uk, ma16460@bristol.ac.uk ABSTRACT As the COVID-19 outbreak hits the world, Malaysia's government has taken precautionary measures immediately, by enforcing the Movement Control Orders (MCO). During the enforcement of MCO, many intriguing stories begin and one of it is, various untold hidden talents have been exposed indirectly by Malaysians. These talents have been uploaded through some of their Social Media (SM) accounts themselves and have been shared by hundreds and thousands of their followers through SM as well. This study seeks to identify the untold hidden talent through SM account among Malaysian society during the unprecedented time of the pandemic, furthermore, it occurs during the enforcement of MCO. The qualitative research approach has been carried out for this study; thus, an in-depth interview has been used as the main method to gather all the data involving talented respondents' personal experience. The empirical results of the study discovered that their action is to avoid suffering from depression, also, it is to dumbfound the mental health issue. Meanwhile, SM has impacted the growth of their talent, indirectly increasing the number of viewers and subscribers or followers on their SM account such as YouTube and Instagram. Finally, their surrounding contacts have positively encouraged for the talent to be practised and been written in a journal for general reference. Indeed, this study is expected to contribute to the SM field and health science and well-being studies to motivate future generations on how to overcome depression and mental health during a global pandemic. Keywords: COVID-19, MCO, SM, talent, health, and well-being ARTICLE INFO Article history Received: 7 March 2021 Accepted: 28 April 2021 Published: 26 May 2021 Volume 11 Issue 1