The document summarizes trends among Indonesian youth in 2019. It discusses several political, musical, food, fashion, and social media trends. Some of the major trends included increased youth involvement in politics during the presidential election, the popularity of singer Didi Kempot among emotionally "wrecked" youth, the rise of local sneaker brands collaborating with influencers, and the resurgence of the 2000s song "Berharap Tak Berpisah" through social media posts. Overall, the document analyzes how Indonesian youth expressed themselves and connected with each other through various cultural and social trends in 2019.

1. Youth Trend
Kaleidoscope 2019
By: Tara Talitha
YOUTHLAB INDONESIA – WWW.ENTERTHELAB.COM

2. Year of Political Madness
Yes 2019 certainly was a political year, it is the year when
Indonesia elected a new president for the next term and its race
of both candidates supporters was a ‘blood bath’.
What makes it interesting was the involvement of younger
generation is greater than ever; they creatively and instantly
create ‘meme’ like shown in the picture when some political
events or comments happening and went viral in social media.
Not only in the social media, the tense was felt also in whatsapp
group and somehow in social gathering (birthday, reunion, etc)
where the topic of both candidates tend to ignite a friction, even
between friends.

3. Year of “Sobat Ambyar”
Couple of trends which happened this year unlikely could not be explained why it
become a trend. One of them is “Didi Kempot” phenomenon among Indonesian
youth.
Didi Kempot is Indonesian singer who is very famous in the mid 80s to late 90s
with his many hits of ‘campursari’ genre (mixed dangdut and keroncong). The
songs mostly talked about broken heart and being left by girls.
This year, he returned with the same mellow songs but the audience is different.
The younger generation, which they call themselves “sobat ambyar” (meaning:
being emotionally wrecked) knighted him as “lord Didi”, because to them he is
the god father of the broken heart.
Though the lyrics are Javanese, but these sobat ambyar could sing their hearts
out to the lyrics, many of them found crying while singing (mostly the boys /
sadboi) in Didi Kempot concert.

4. Do you know the similarities among Kunto Aji’s “Pilu
Membiru”, Feast’s “Peradaban” and Sal Priadi feat Nadin
Amizah’s “Amin Paling Serius”?
Clue: still related with the trend of ‘ambyar’ness
Yes for sure these are the top Spotify chart in 2019, but
moreover these three songs has such a powerful, poetic,
straight-cut-to-your-heart lyrics like this:
“Bayangkan betapa cantik dan lucunya gemuruh petir ini
disanding rintik rintik yang gemas dan merayakan amin paling
serius seluruh dunia”
These artists also not born out of the major labels, back in
the mid 2000s, the music industry labelled them as indie
artists.
Year of those ‘Damn Lyrics’

5. Year of SJW-Straw
SJW or Social Justice Warrior is not a new term, oxford
dictionary put this term in 2015, but the term became
popular in 2018-2019. It almost similar to the activist who
fight for their views and demand people to follow that they
think as right or just, and sometimes it has both positive
and negative respond from people.
In the early 2019, the campaign of using stainless or non-
plastic straw was raised by this SJW. They demand people
to start replacing their plastic straw by stainless or
bamboo straw.
That’s why as a dark cynical joke, Indonesian youth called
those stainless or non-plastic straw as ‘sedotan SJW’ (SJW
straw).
photo source: mojok.co

6. Year of Foodie Lifestyle
Raise your hand if you’ve ever experienced a long ridiculous
queue over a boba drink?
Boba drink is actually a bubble drink, originated from
Taiwan. Those cute boba in the bottom of your beverage is
chewy bubble made from tapioca flour and sugar (on a
healthy note, we’re talking about a really high sugar here).
Besides boba, other ‘foodie lifestyle’ also gained popularity
such as kombucha (fermented tea drink), burgushi (burger
sushi) and salad bowl. It become a lifestyle to have them,
took photos with nice angles and boom, goes to their social
media to get likes and comments.

7. Year of Local Sneakers
On December 2019 midnight hours, there was a crazy line in
front of Grand Indonesia shopping mall. For what?
Yup to buy the limited edition compass shoes. The event was
cancelled though, due to the massive crowd in front of the mall.
Compass is local sneakers brand from Bandung in the early
2000s. Why it gained popularity now?
Because of their rebranding strategy with fashion influencers
colab (collaboration). They often have booths in sneakers event
such as Urban Sneaker Society. They also limit their production
to make it more exclusive.
photo source: tokopedia

8. Year of Retro Collective Space
If you passed the area of Blok M in southern part
of Jakarta, you could find this chic retro building
called M Bloc.
Inside, you could find cafes, resto, and corner for
live music. There are also music library,
contemporary art and creative gallery.
In another corner, there are other pop culture
hub to connect the designers with their market.
Interestingly, this space do not have parking lot,
so if you want to go here, you could take the MRT
or transjakarta buses.
photo source: womantalk.com

9. Year of ‘Instagrammable’ Urban Corner
This one particularly in Jakarta; there are many new
infrastructure and transport mode built and launched last
year of 2019.
The most famous are the MRT, and the Sudirman bridges,
also the hype of grab wheels. All of a sudden, after office
hour, we can see many young people stopping by at the
bridge to take photos, others are riding their wheels in the
pedestrian road.
The MRT that launched in March 2019, got many attention
from the young citizen, some of youth communities also
held their thematic photo session inside the MRT.

10. Year of Netizen Catchy Phrases
“Kids jaman now” sounds so ancient, there are new catchy phrases
roaming through both offline and online platform, they are:
Negara berflower / warga +62, these are the terms to call
Indonesian netizen, ber’flower’ means ber’kembang’ referring to
Indonesia still considered as developing country. And +62 is the call
code for Indonesian region.
Santuy, the upgraded version of ‘woles’ or ‘selow’ means calm, no
hurry, no hassle in responding certain issues.
Bucin, the abbreviation of ‘budak cinta’ or love slave, means when
you are willing to do anything for the one you love
Ghibah, this is not a new term, but the usage of the word becoming
very casual, it could mean ‘gossiping but rather fact’ so it’s not that
guilty to do ‘ghibah’ (according to them).
KaumRebahan, when young people preferred to spend most of their
times lay in bed while do their online activities

11. Year of Thread Stories
For me personally, twitter is social media that is very dynamic
due to its nature of its fast, instant, limited word of information.
Twitter get its popularity back in 2009, then lose some of the
regular users when facebook and Instagram took over. However
in the mid 2018 till now, twitter is gaining back its popularity
more than ever, thanks to the trend of thread stories.
Thread story is like a chained story where you can read article
about almost anything. Some of the trending thread stories
happened in 2019 were the thread about “KKN di Desa Penari”
(a horror experience by some students during their college
community project), also the affair from one of the national
aviation companies in Indonesia. Most of the thread stories
earned the trending topic hashtag on twitter.

12. Year of “Izinkan Aku…” Resurrection
I realized that most of the trends happening in 2019
were a cycled-trend that happened a few years or a
decade back. This hypothesis proved by Dr. Faisal theory
of generation. One of the cycled trend is this song.
Actually the song called “Berharap Tak Berpisah” sang by
Reza Artamevia back in early 2000s, but it become such
a big comeback over a post by @overheardjkt account as
shown in the next picture.
Most of the lounge, bar or café with live music always
delivered this song as their signature song. There’s
another term called ‘senoparty’ which describe as a
partygoers in Senopati area who likes to post instastory
with drinks in their hands and of course singing the part
of “Izinkan aku… untuk terakhir kalinya….”
photo source: overheardjkt