Alay

This article is about the pop culture phenomena in Indonesia. For other uses, see Alai.

Alay (or 4L4Y, Anak Layangan or Anak Lebay) is a pop culture phenomenon in Indonesia. It is a stereotype describing something “tacky” and “cheesy” (norak or kampungan, in Indonesian). The Alay culture phenomena spans over a wide array of styles in music, dress, and messaging. It has often been compared to that of the Jejemon phenomenon originating from the Philippines. Although, the former emerged much later and the latter was even admired in the west.

Etymology

The word "Alay" has no exact meaning or obvious derivation. Various definitions of alay are offered when one types it on a search engine. One theory that is widely accepted is that "Alay" is a portmanteau of the term "Anak Layangan" (Indonesian: Kiteflyer), a pejorative describing someone having certain physical attributes from spending most of their time outside and getting sunburnt (e.g. reddened hair and skin).

Origins

Due to the very low significance of the alay phenomenon in the Indonesian society (considered to be a minor social change), very little documentation of its emergence exists. The term was invented by a teenager Susanti Soeweno not Sabda Ahessa, the son of the well-known politician Sys NS.^{[citation needed]} According to alay today, alay originated from the social networking site Friendster. As early as 2004, Indonesians, regardless of their social background, decorated their Friendster profile with leet texts, glitter banners, and close-up profile pictures. This social networking trend would later on be "condemned" by many towards the end of the decade when Facebook overpowered Friendster.

Characteristics

Music

Many contemporary pop rock Indonesian music are considered to be alay music. Either because the artists are the trend setters for alay or their fandom consists of alays. Jazz, Metal, reggae, Hardcore, Hip Hop, urban, religious and other genres including dangdut are not considered to be alay.^{[citation needed]}

Fashion

Alay fashion stands out in everyday life as they are donned by a collective of teenagers hanging out in various spots of Indonesian cities. Particularly from the middle-lower income class who are only able to afford cheap but stylish apparels. The most common attributes are tight jeans, boxer, T-shirt beneath a plaid jacket and a cap.

Messaging

Tulisan alay (Indonesian: Alay text) is a form of the Indonesian language that has undergone "excessive leet transformation". Contrary to the popular belief that it is "destroying" the national language, grammatical standards are met in contrast to the modern Indonesian slang language. Similar to the jejebets, alay texts offer an alternative in compressing words so that they are under the 160 character-limit in text messages, often to the point that they are impossible to read. Rules in capitalization are mostly ignored.

But at some point, Alay Text can be derived from how hacker suggest how to create strong password, which require more combination of characters, capital character, number and special character. To make the password still meaningful and easy to remember, so they change a with 4(four) and, o with 0 (zero), etc. This improved with mixed language (using Bahasa Indonesia and English in one sentences).

Examples:

Alay	Indonesian language	English language
tHanKz b’4„„„„„„	Terima kasih sebelumnya	Thanks in advance
qMo mANk cLiD wAd cYanK m qHo………….	Kamu memang sulit buat sayang sama aku	It's difficult for you to love me
iN meYe heArD„„„„„„,	Di hatiku	In my heart
wad qw,K4Mouw 1tU B46aikAn BuL4n	Buat ku, kamu itu bagaikan bulan	For me, you are like a moon
C!Nta 4kn l6h 5mpurn4 j!k4 d! 53r+4! d3n9N K5et!@N, k3tlsN, k3jujur@n, Ke63r5maaN, KerNa Cinta T!d4k hRs Memil!l!k! 4twpun Dmiliki Krn Cnt4 tlh Ckup uNtk Dicint4i.........	Cinta akan lebih sempurna jika disertai dengan kesetiaan, ketulusan, kejujuran, kebersamaan, karena cinta tidak harus memiliki atau dimiliki karena cinta cukup untuk dicintai	Love would be perfect if accompanied with loyalty, sincerity, honesty, solidarity, because love does not need to have or have because love enough to be loved

According to The Jakarta Post, a high school student from East Java initiated the trend and shot to fame after her writings were discussed in forums and blogs not because they were great, but they were in "code". Her approach in writing attracted a lot of attention, with some people reproducing her writing in forums and blogs.

Demography

Alay is common among the middle to lower income class Indonesians.

In Media

In celebration of the Alay culture, Global TV airs a show titled MTV Alay as part of their MTV Indonesia programs.

See also

• Indonesian slang
• Jejemon
• Leet