What’s your favorite Indonesian video or show right now? Drop it below 👇

Whether you are learning Bahasa Indonesia or looking for the next big market trend, the answer is found in the endless scroll of Indonesian popular videos. The screen is small, but the impact is enormous.

The air in the cramped editing suite in South Jakarta was thick with the smell of clove cigarettes and instant noodles. Rina, a 24-year-old video editor, stared at her timeline. On it was the raw footage for “Cinta di Ujung Senja” (Love at the Edge of Dusk), the latest episode of a popular web series produced by her startup studio, Kreasi Nusantara. The story was a familiar, comforting recipe: a shy girl from Bandung, a mysterious photographer from Bali, and a jealous rival who would eventually learn a lesson about friendship. It was a formula that had worked for a thousand sinetron (soap operas) before it, and it was working again on YouTube.