What does ‘Om Telolet Om’ mean, and why are dance music DJs sharing it?

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2016 12 22 om telolet om ent main

It's the hot topic in the dance music world right now.

The year 2016 has been full of seemingly unanswerable questions: Why do all of our favourite people keep dying? And why have things gone so horribly wrong?

And it seems that, even as we prepare to bid farewell to the year, the people of planet Earth are continuing to ask more questions – and, right now, the hot topic of debate is: “Om Telolet Om?”

Om Telolet Om is indeed a thing, and it’s a thing that has been of particular concern to the dance music world this week. It seemingly took off with a genuinely inquisitive tweet from Dutch DJ duo Bassjackers, before quickly becoming the buzzword of the day among the bassy electronic community on social media

One estimate suggested that ‘Om Telolet Om’ has been used over 790,000 times on Twitter since it blew up this week, but with very little understanding as to what the phrase actually means.

But don’t fret, reader – The guys who did Closer and Waterbed will help you. As pointed out in a reply to The Chainsmokers’ own investigation into the meaning behind the phrase, ‘Om Telolet Om’ originates from an onomatopoeic saying in Indonesia.

So ‘Telolet’ represents the sound of a musical bus horn in Indonesia, which has become something of a catchphrase among children in the country since November – kids often implore bus drivers to sound their customised horn while passing them on the street, as you can see from the below video, which was taken on a street on the island of Java.

As for the ‘Om’, it’s a form of addressing or describing an older man in Indonesia – similar to ‘Kuya’ or ‘Sir’. So, to recap: ‘Om Telolet Om’ essentially translates as ‘Sir, honk the horn, sir’.

And the final piece of the puzzle – why has the phrase taken off in the dance music world? It appears that Indonesian fans have started spamming their favourite DJs’ social media feeds with the phrase, and successfully became a niche meme, where some DJ’s remixing the telolet sound.

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