While we brought you some of the most thought-provoking and affecting original feature stories in 2018, Coconuts Jakarta is pleased to say that we still have a great eye for spotting the best/weirdest/wondrous/most frustrating stories from the capital and throughout Indonesia and seeing them go viral.
From anti-vaxxers unknowingly using a globally renowned porn star as their mascot to Youtube drama involving Indonesia’s version of Logan Paul, here are, in ascending order, the 10 most viral Coconuts Jakarta stories of 2018:
No race is superior over another, but one might get the impression that the Indonesian media is perpetuating the idea as they constantly report on stories about locals marrying foreigners as if that’s an achievement in and of itself for the former. We hope that, considering how this story became our most popular opinion piece of the year, stories glorifying interracial marriage in Indonesia are going out of fashion.
This was just one of the many cases of persecution against the LGBT community in Indonesia this year, but it’s one of the most troubling considering the vile and inhumane humiliation towards the victims just because they were merely exercising their right to express their sexual identities.
This story has all the makings for mega-viral popularity: penile mutilation, eating of said mutilated penis, and ghosts. Yet it’s not even the only bizarre penis-related murder in Indonesia in recent years (another eerily similar case occurred in 2015). Will someone bring Shaft over to investigate before another man loses it?
This super heartwarming story is a timely reminder that people are good, regardless of the constant efforts by those who want to divide us based on creed, race and social status. It’s also a reminder that, despite all the stories of hardships suffered by Indonesia’s domestic workers, there are still plenty of ridiculously kind people out there — the kind of people we should all aspire to be.
There’s beauty in this story about a beast, and the family who cared for him for over two decades. We must admit their goodbye was as much a tearjerker as the ending of Marley & Me.
We get as uncomfortable being near excessively touchy-feely couples as the next person, but one man’s quest to teach a lesson to a couple making out has become a lesson for all that filming people getting frisky is against the law in Indonesia. Karma is a UU ITE charge, indeed.
This story is wrong on so many levels, and it’s also one of the most scandalous stories in Indonesia in 2018. Sadly, it’s only one of many pedophilia cases in Indonesia despite increasingly heavy punishment against offenders.
We’re not sure why anyone would want to emulate Logan Paul, but it doesn’t seem to be for anything else but Youtube clicks and ad money. It also seems that many are repulsed by Paul and his Indonesian copycat Qorygore for filming a dead body in Japan’s infamous suicide forest, with this story attracting outrage against the Youtubers on our social media channels for weeks.
The simplest explanation is often the correct one, and the simplest explanation for this story is that this boy, literally and figuratively, is full of shit. We’re not sure if he thought claiming to be able to lay eggs is a path to fame — maybe if he lived during the golden age of circus freak shows in the 19th century?
There are many ridiculous anti-science hoaxes spread by anti-vaxxers, but, dare we say it, this one is easily the funniest one in human history. If you’re still on the fence about vaccines, we urge you to give this story a read just to get a sense of the kind of misinformation the naysayers regularly accept as fact.
