The most recent craze in the dance music world seems to have come out of nowhere, and no one knows how or why. It all started when many of the industry’s biggest DJs all began to tweet out a certain phrase without giving any explanation.
“OM TELOLET OM,” tweeted Zedd at 11:16 AM on December 20. Shortly after, at 12:28, Martin Garrix tweeted out “what is Om Telolet Om?” After a while, many more DJs started to tweet out the phrase, many of them expressing confusion.
As it turns out, “Om Telolet Om” is a slang phrase growing popular in Indonesia. Telolet is an onomatopoeic expression used to mimic the sounds made by Indonesian public busses and om is a word used for calling older adult males. Reportedly a recent trend in Indonesia has kids going up to the busses and asking the drivers to honk the horn by repeating the phrase.
The phrase spread to the Dance world when these children began spamming DJs with the phrase via social media. “Om telolet om” would be commented all over their accounts on Instagram and Twitter despite the DJs initially not understanding why. Luckily, many DJs took the joke well and began to embrace what has now become the internet’s latest meme.
