How an Indonesian onomatopoeia became a dance-music sample and a meme

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Om Telolet Om. That three-word phrase is currently sprinkled across the Twitter mentions and Instagram comments of celebrities around the word. But what does it mean?

As Billboard points out, Om Telolet Om doesn’t quite mean anything. It’s a noise. The onomatopoeia was created by kids in Indonesia. “Telolet” is meant to represent the sound city buses make when they honk: it’s a complex, carnival-like beep. And “Om” is an Indonesian word that loosely translates to “sir.” So, as one Twitter user pointed out to The Chainsmokers, “Om Telolet Om” basically means “Sir, honk the bus, sir.” The young creators of Om Telolet Om shout the phrase and scrawl it on cardboard signs, trying to get passing bus drivers to honk at them.

At least a month after kids chanted the sound in Indonesia, it moved online, where it took hold in dance-music culture. Producers like DJ Snake and Zedd tweeted the phrase, which traveled like a game of “The Game.” At first, you don’t know what it is; when you learn, you share it, signaling you’re in on the secret. Musicians like the Dutch duo Firebeatz and Dillon Francis went further, working the goofy honking into an EDM sample.

But Om Telolet Om wasn’t an instant hit worldwide. A 22-year-old Twitter user named Vian from the Indonesian city of Semarang explained to The Verge that the phrase originated with young kids in the town of Jepara, in the Central Java province. According to The Jakarta Post, the children would stand in front of a gas station at the city’s entrance every day around 4:30 p.m. to greet the bus drivers. Vian told me it was just a simple, fun thing that kids would yell, because Om Telolet Om looks “cute” in Indonesian. From there, teenagers from Jepara started to pick it up and use it online. Vian explained locals would use it as a gleeful response when others got annoyed, and he guessed tweeting the phrase at celebrities was just a way to spread joy.