About
Bekasi’s Terrible Infrastructure/Bekasi is Not on Earth is a meme that has been circulating on Indonesian social medias and websites that criticizes the city’s poor infrastructure and humid weather.
Origin
Poor Infrastructure Joke
Bekasi is a city located west of Jakarta (and also part of the Greater Jakarta Metropolitan Area) that’s infamous for its poor infrastructure, broken roads, and its sweltering summer heat in the months of August and October. The earliest instances of the joke can be traced back to October 5th 2014 when Twitter users began complaining on how hot the weather is (Shown Below)
@BhanniSKA says: “Hell has broken loose in Bekasi, the sun and dust are very hot”
@Geraldvalentino says: “One word [to Bekasi]: HOT!!!”
@Puspaacin says: “Bekasi sure is hot.”
Spread
Not long after, Image macros and rage comics about Bekasi started spawning in Twitter, Kaskus, and a meme Facebook pages called meme_komik. Two hashtags, #Bekasidibully and #Bekasikenapa also started surfacing around twitter.
Translation: “I think this one’s the most accurate one… Tsk tsk tsk, Bekasi, Bekasi. You always seem to get the short end of the stick…”
“IF YOU’RE DRIVINGANDYOUSUDDENLYSEEDAMAGEDROADSEVERYWHERE, THATMEANS YOU’RE ENTERINGBEKASI”
Criticism
Although most citizens of Bekasi took the meme merely as a joke, several Twitter users criticized the meme as a type of cyberbullying against the city. One example is a user named @emrfadhil tweeting that Bekasi was the town that protected Soekarno and Muhammad Hatta (Indonesia ’s first president and vice president) during the Dutch military aggression.
Baca ini dulu sebelum bully Bekasi. #IniBekasiKu#BekasiDiBullypic.twitter.com/kPRHM9aQe9
— Emir Fadhil Bashar (@emirfadhil) October 11, 2014
Translation: “Read this before bullying Bekasi.”
Bekasi is Not on Earth
On October 10th 2014, a full moon occurred that could be seen in all corners of the island of Java except Bekasi. Twitter and Facebook users soon started joking that Bekasi is not located on earth, but in outer space. Which soon after contributed to the meme as image macros depicting the city’s location spawn across Facebook, Twitter, and Kaskus (An Indonesian forum website).
Bekasi Mayor’s Response
On October 13th 2014, in the middle of a routine meeting, The Mayor of Bekasi scolded all of his subordinates about the recent event on social media regarding #Bekasidibully.
Mau kotanya diejek? Dikarikaturkan? Digambarkan seolah-olah Bekasi tidak ada di peta?
Translation: “Do you want your city to be mocked? Caricatured? As if Bekasi is not even on the map?”
Notable Example
