The latest Indonesian hit: an AI song about Minister Bahlil

JAKARTA – The latest song that took the Indonesian Internet by storm was not written by an artist, nor is it about a celebrity.

This is an AI-generated earworm on Energy Minister Bahlil Lahadalia, an associated politician more with fuel subsidies and cooking gas as viral hits.

Since mid-May, Mas Bahlil Ganteng – Indonesian for “Handsome Brother Bahlil” – has quickly spread across TikTok, Instagram and WhatsApp groups, spawning dance videos, cartoon animations and countless remixes.

One of them, that of Instagram user @fikriferdians, has been viewed more than 30 million times since it was uploaded on May 23.

Users produced English and Chinese versions, while others recorded violin covers, ska remixes and a cappella performances.

On May 31, even former President Joko Widodo joined the trend by posting a video on Instagram showing visitors singing and dancing to the song in front of his residence.

The clip draws inspiration from the now-familiar social media phenomenon “Jokowi gate,” in which supporters, politicians and content creators regularly gather outside his home to film videos and seek an audience with the former leader.

Like many things on the Indonesian internet – which recently turned President Prabowo Subianto’s remark that villagers don’t use US dollars into a flood of jokes and memes – it’s funny, absurd and surprisingly revealing.

The joke starts in the title itself: MBG is better known in Indonesia by the initials Makan Bergizi Gratis (“free nutritious meals”), Prabowo’s dish. Controversial flagship school meals program.

The initiative has made headlines in recent weeks after a series of food poisoning incidents, which resulted in the replacement of the program’s director and the arrest of several officials amid a corruption investigation.

Netizens brazenly transformed MBG into Mas Bahlil Ganteng.

It’s unclear who composed the song first, but it didn’t come from a campaign rally or political ad. Instead, it appears to have been assembled from online comments about the minister and set to an AI-generated tune.

One standout line affectionately describes it as “my little bolu ketan,” a fluffy sponge cake made from glutinous rice flour, inspiring a stream of AI-generated images depicting the minister as the dessert itself.

The lyrics form a participatory portrait of one of Indonesia’s most recognizable politicians.

Bahlil is not a singer or a social media personality, he East both energy minister and president of Golkar, one of the country’s largest political parties.

His portfolio touches on everyday issues ranging from fuel prices to subsidized cooking gas, making him a familiar and often controversial public figure.

But the phenomenon is not limited to Bahlil. It offers insight into a distinctive feature of Indonesian political discourse: the tendency to discuss serious political issues through humor, pop culture and the coded language of the Internet.

This is evident in the way Indonesians increasingly borrow characters and symbols from popular culture to talk about politics.

Governments become “Konoha”, a reference to the fictional village in the anime series Naruto, while powerful political figures are jokingly referred to as “Hokage”, the series’ village leader.

The same impulse was visible in 2025 when One Piece Pirate Flags Started Appearing During Protests and on vehicles across Indonesia.

What started as a reference to popular Japanese manga and anime The series about a band of pirates has become a symbol of dissatisfaction with the political establishment and a form of coded political expression.

By 2024, Prabowo’s carefully cultivated “gemoy” or cute persona has become a meme in its own right, which many have attributed to his electoral success.

More recently, social media users picked up on Prabowo’s remark that the villagers do not use American dollars in a flood of jokes and satirical videos.

The country’s politics are often filtered through memes, parody songs and fictional worlds, where humor becomes commentary. Jokes invite criticism, and Internet trends can sometimes reveal more about public opinion than a formal political debate can.

Politicians themselves have learned to play the game. On May 29, Bahlil said in a video chat with special presidential envoy and television personality Raffi Ahmad that he hoped to meet the song’s creator over a meal.

He also joked that even his own children started teasing him by calling him ‘Bapak MBG’.

Golkar, meanwhile, has been quick to embrace the phenomenon, even though party leaders insist they had nothing to do with the song. creation.

For now, the song shows no signs of disappearing. He continues to generate remixes, dance videos and new variations online.

This tune has become so ubiquitous that it can now be heard everywhere – from fitness classes in Jakarta to neighborhood gatherings.