Unless you were on a remote desert island without any Internet connection yesterday, you are probably very familiar with ‘OM TELOLET OM’, which burst out of the Indonesian memeosphere and onto the global stage in a big way yesterday after some of the world’s biggest DJs started tweeting about it, making it into the top trending topic on Twitter worldwide and causing people all over the world to ask what the mysterious phrase meant – until they learned it was what Indonesian kids say to get bus drivers to honk their horns.(READ: Indonesian meme ‘OM TELOLET OM’ goes global, causing hilarious mass confusion)
What caused the DJs to start asking about it was pretty simple – Indonesian internet trolls have been filling up the comments on their social media channels with endless OTOs. And they weren’t the only ones targeted, several famous figures – including US President Obama, future US president Donald Trump (ugh, hate typing that out), Kim Kardashian and supermodel Gigi Hadid – saw their Instagram photos filled with endless requests that they honk their horns. 
If the Indonesian jokers spreading the OTO meme were hoping to get a reaction, they’ve succeeded beyond their wildest dreams. Beyond the world of EDM, they got Football club Real Madrid to acknowledge them in this photo featuring Cristiano Ronaldo.
Arsenal also appears to have acknowledged OTO:
But of course the reason that the OTOers focused their energies on DJs at first is because they knew that they could make their telolet techno remix dreams a reality. And that they did, with several having already whipped up some impressive beats to the sounds of our buses.
One of our favorites comes from local producer Eka Gustiwana:
On the OTO homefront
Even though the OTO meme has been around in Indonesia for quite a while, having it “go international” of course made it the main topic of conversation here. It’s not surprising then that one of the most talked about men in Indonesia, Jakarta Governor Basuki “Ahok” Tjahaja Purnama had an OTO sign thrust into his hands after an event last night in order to take this photo that the internet demanded:
Vice governor candidate Sandiaga Uno put a little more effort with his OTO entry:
The Indonesian Air Force got in on it too:
There there’s this video combining OTO with two other viral challenge to create one mega meta meme:
OTO’s insane popularity also spawned several viral variations here. For a while “om telat om” (Sir, I’m late, sir) was a trending topic.
Government backlash
While OTO has been bringing joy to children and laughs to adults happy to hear about something from Indonesia that isn’t about terrorism or intolerance, as is so often the case, government officials seem intent on being buzzkills.
Yesterday, Transportation Minister Budi Karya Sumadi called upon bus drivers not to respond to OTO requests as the trend could endanger children. Today he went further, saying his ministry would soon prohibit buses from using their customized telolet horns as their dangerously high decibel levels could endanger other motorists.
Considering how long telolet-style horns have been popular on buses here, this seems to be purely a reaction to OTO’s new global fame. But somehow we don’t think the government will go through with banning the famous horns. And if they did – well expect to see every government website and social media channel to fill with an endless stream of ‘OM TELOLET OM’ until they gave in and let the horns honk freely again.
