Indonesians love their mie (noodles), and many hold locally produced instant noodles in extremely high regard. So when a video showing a group of girls physically vandalizing innocent packs of instant noodles recently went viral, netizens were understandably incensed.
The short video clip shows three girls crushing packets of Mie Sedaap and Indomie — two of the most popular instant noodle brands in Indonesia — that were piled up at a supermarket for no discernable reason. One of the girls is holding the camera while the other two carried out the act of blasphe-mie, with one of them covering her face with an Indomie packet.
“C’mon, hurry up,” said the girl behind the camera before crushing some packets herself.
“Take that, people who want to buy [the noodles],” she continued.
The video appears to have been originally posted as a story on Instagram by one of the girls. One Twitter user has shared the video — taking care to cross out the girl’s Instagram handle — which has been viewed over 900,000 times as of this afternoon.
https://twitter.com/masiidupp/status/1152856064863264768
“If you don’t want to buy [the noodles], you don’t have to crush them,” he wrote in the tweet.
At the time of writing, it’s not yet known where the video was taken. Some netizens say they were able to find one of the girls’ Instagram accounts and have sent her messages asking for her and her friends to apologize and take responsibility for their actions.
Many netizens expressed heartache over seeing the instant noodles being vandalized.
Ini kenapa gue sering bgt liat seonggok makhluk yg begini? ga diluar negeri ga di indo, emg lagi ngetren yaa ngerusakin barang di supermarket? atau lagi ada challenge? tolong jelasin gue orang kampung soalnya ga gahool
— nads!🐹 (@elgirlbelle) July 21, 2019
“Why am I seeing a lot of creatures like these? Whether it’s abroad or in Indonesia, is there a trend that involves breaking things in supermarkets? Or is there a [viral] challenge of some kind? Please explain to me, a villager, because I’m not keeping up with trends.”
Gw sumpahin seumur hidup mreka makan mie instan ga dapet bumbunya..
— Dickydifie (@DickyDifie) July 21, 2019
“I pray that whenever they want to eat instant noodles they will be deprived of the seasoning.”
cari muka, ujung-ujungnya keciduk klarifikasi minta maaf.
— rama (@bacotdah) July 21, 2019
“[They’re] looking for attention, in the end they’ll get caught, clarify [their actions] then ask for forgiveness.”
These girls are not the first to go viral for vandalizing supermarket products recently. Earlier this month, several university students in the South Sulawesi capital of Makassar filmed themselves thrashing a supermarket. They apologized after the video went viral.
Is this part of a larger, global trend of youngsters deliberately showing disrespect towards other people’s property for internet clout? We know that, in the US, some young people have been partaking in a viral trend called the “ice cream challenge”, which involves kids in supermarkets opening tubs of ice cream and licking their contents before putting them back in the freezer for unsuspecting victims to buy.
Whatever it is, we hope this trend doesn’t pick up in Indonesia because respecting instant noodles feels like one of the few things we can all agree upon here.
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