Haven't put much thought into music going "viral" and the various things it means these days (as opposed to what it might have meant in 1966 – if they'd used the metaphor – when "Hanky Panky" started to get airplay while it was still a bootleg). But what follows is the story of a motif, a riff, a meme, how it's been traveling – through SE and South Asia, mainly, though I wonder where it will go from there.

Recently posted a new Eardrums playlist – proud of this one for how I torture you with art in the first half and pummel you with dance in the second.

Emergency (Frank's Eardrums November 2025):


My playlists are probably the art-type endeavor I'm most happy with recently, the way I make them flow and jar and contrast like cassette mixtapes of old. There are a slew of them on my YouTube channel if you want to look.

You'll notice that several motifs recur on the new playlist, insinuated in one song here, another song there. I'm devoting this essay to the motif that recurs most. Keep in mind that not only don't I know the local culture of these musics, I'm also grossly ignorant of the great nation-state of TikTok – especially haven't figured out how to search it. So maybe I've got the story all wrong, but nonetheless I can tell this as a kinda story, so here goes.

[ADMIN sentence: When a linked track is also on the playlist I put the track's number in parentheses.]

As I recount my story I mostly hold back on song titles and performer names. I think doing so emphasizes best – and most humorously – how the story pings internationally across borders. I do list artists and song titles in a "Legend" at the end. And for those of you going in with confusion regarding what is where, I recommend this primer on East Asian placenames by Alex Chilton.

I'll preface our tale by linking a nice song, Indonesian, from 2020, a sidelight but it does enter our story a bit later – guess I'd categorize it as "pop" though it feels a bit indie; am not sure why I think so, maybe 'cos of the video, the skirts, shirts, shorts, roadway; though categorizing it as indie disregards the bouncy keyboard that seemed even then to be inviting a budots bubblegum treatment.

Now, for the story proper, we're going to flip back to 2010, Thailand, a movie, a comedy whose title is given in English as Holy Man 3. In a short cameo, a white-haired comedian, who's made up to look older than he is, delivers a combination chant, incantation, and love spell, hamming it up as if a bit agitated and unsettled by the power he's pretending to unleash, while those around him dance to his rhythm. The clip shows up on YouTube in 2015 with the title "Thai Ghost Funny movie" and then with better visual quality on YouTube again and TikTok on the same day in August 2021.

Chant, incantation, love spell (excerpt)


I surmise that the incantation-love-spell subsequently gets more TikTok posts, because a year later, in 2022, a pretty boy-idol type teams up with White-Haired Comedian (having grown into his makeup) to put forth a slamming rock song prominently featuring White-Haired Guy and his love chant – now with melody and chord progression! – the video tagged "TikTok" in the YouTube caption, implying some notoriety already, though the tag could've been added later.

Slamming rock song w/ love chant:


Helpfully, the YouTube post also includes the song lyrics; and by running them through Google Translate we discover that the chant syllables don't translate. That is, they are just that: syllables. They don't represent other Thai words, any more than "abracadabra" represent some other English word usable outside its magic purpose – as opposed to, say, "Eenie meeny chili beanie, the spirits are about to speak."

So, "อะนันตะปัดชะเย อะปัดติเถเถนา อะปัดติยา อะปัดติเถเถคือ อะปัดติโถ อะปัดติกึด กึด กึด อะปัดชะเย," Google Translate giving us "Anantapatchaye, apatti the na, apattiya, apatti the the khe, apatti tho, apatti kud, kud, apatchaye" but that actually drops a few syllables; I've transliterated it myself (giving you "ay" for the long ā sound and "i" for the long ee):

Anan-tah-pah-tchay-ay a-pah-ti tay tay nah, apah tay-yah a-pah-ti tay tay koo, a-pah-ti-toe a-pah-ti kud kud kud, a pah tchay-ay-i-ay-i-ay-i-ay

The way he says it, the "anan-t" is sort of introductory, so it's like "[anan-t]ah-pah-tchay-ay a-pah-ti tay tay nah" etc., which will be important for further orthographic and cultural developments.

Also, I have no idea if our chant has had previous life in Thai culture or whether the comedian and/or his scriptwriters thought it up themselves. [FOOTNOTE 1]

And I don't know the adventures of our motif over the next couple of years, really, except that it does show up at least now and then on TikTok both as chanted by the shaman and excerpted from the rock track (playlist Track 9), as well as live clips. But then – *pause* *for* *dramatic* *emphasis* – there's the fateful day in October 2024 when a New Zealand-born member of a K-pop superstar girl group releases a super-catchy track whose start and hook are based on a Korean drinking game. By coincidence it's spoken vehemently, not exactly an intonation or a chant, but not NOT a chant, either; and though the rhythm and sound are not a precise match for our shaman love spell, the opening vowel "ah" and top 2 consonants "puh-tah" of the drinking game's not-quite-chant, ah-puh-tah puh-tit, are the same vowel-consonant-consonant of syllables 3-4-5 of the first word of our love spell and syllables 1-2-3 of love spell's second word and most of the rest. So within two days someone on TikTok does a cut-up of the Thai shaman chant, mashing it over the NZ-Kpop beat. A few days after that, someone else on TikTok mashes the NZ-Kpop quasi-chant into the shaman chant (both using the shaman's chanted version rather than the sung version), then comes another, a day after that.

None of those initial shaman-NZ-Kpop TikTok mashups actually work for me as mashups, as enhancements rather than just "well, here's this, and this." But nonetheless, going forward from here, our anantapatchaye (or however it's been getting spelled, e.g. "ana pad chaye") not only has gotten yet another title – "APT Thai," "APT Thailand," "APT Thailand version" – this new attention has caused the floodgates to pour forth (does TikTok even have gates? can gates pour forth? these do).

So we're now getting reposts of the mashup and also – riding the hot new title – more posts of the white-haired spellmaker guy's chanted excerpt and of his sung excerpt; and, going beyond TikTok into the world as a whole, especially (for our story, anyway) down in Indonesia, our ana pad chaye is being grasped and grappled with by local DJs, live DJ mix sets, "Apt Thailand," mixed with or running into this track and/or that track, e.g. "DJ Paling Enak Sedunia || DJ Apt X Menina Do Job X Moki Moki Style Terbaru Paling Banyak Dicari" (this particular mashup, btw, if I'm getting it right, is – among other things? – an Indonesian DJ mashing a Thai rock track into a Brazilian favela funk track as well as into a track using a Punjabi vocal). These Indonesian DJ sets garner millions of YouTube views (e.g., here [flashing lights] and here and here).

DJ Paling Enak Sedunia || DJ Apt X Menina Do Job X Moki Moki Style Terbaru Paling Banyak Dicari


Meanwhile, remember our nice maybe-a-little-bit-indie pop song from our tale's prologue? In late December an Indonesian teenager gets the idea, or is given the idea (is it for a talent show?), to sing that song but to include APT Thai (the sung version with melody and chord progression) as its intro and its break. Maybe the two songs had already been run together in a DJ set or remix, though if so I haven't found it on YouTube. But now, not only does her new APT segment get merged into DJ sets, but (it's January 2025 now) a different singer, a young woman in her twenties, definitely a talent show contestant, basically covers the teenager's intermix of the APT Thai and the nice a-little-bit-indie pop song. [FOOTNOTE 2]

Indonesian talent-show intermix (Track 14):


This new one, the young woman's cover, changes the game once again, reflooding the gates in the ongoing rush of going viral, the young woman's version getting so much attention that for practical purposes she's created a second canonical version to compete with the white-haired guy's. It's a hit (according to the Internet) in Tamil-speaking sections of India (more from India a few paragraphs down; here's a man and woman singing gentle mashups on Facebook). On TikTok and YouTube it's now the Indonesian talent show woman's 30-second APT Thai intro that gets lip synced and danced to.

Meme is danced to (Track 19):


This singing really is lovely, and forceful, and catchy; as, actually, was the gruff shaman comedian's in its sung version, catchy and beautiful for all its gruffness.

I'll add that the young Indonesian woman's syllables differ slightly from the shaman's in that she leaves out the first "t" in the initial word, and two syllables later she skips the "ch" (so his "Anan-tah-pah-tchay-ay" becomes her "Ananna-pah-tay-ay"), and at the end she skips the ch again, so his " a pah tchay-ay-i-ay-i-ay-i-ay" becomes " a pah tay-ay-i-ay-i-ay-i-ay." So for those singing along at home, the young woman's version is:

Ananna-pah-tay-ay a-pah-ti tay tay nah, apah tay-yah a-pah-ti tay tay koo, a-pah-ti-toe a-pah-ti kud kud kud, a pah tay-ay-i-ay-i-ay-i-ay

As for the transliterated title (when we're not getting "APT Thailand" and such), it's sometimes "Anan Ta Pad Chaye" for the guy's version; but, also, this spelling is sometimes used as the title for hers, too, even in the closed captions, though she's definitely not singing the ch. "Apataye" or "Apateye" has become a standard title when they remix her in the Philippines (which we'll get to), leaving the introductory "anan" out of the title (the song dispenses with the "anan" in the second phrase anyway). --On the guy's version I've no trouble with transliterators substituting d for t (in English t's can be pronounced "t" or "d" depending on the syllable, ditto d's, e.g. the word "stopped").

Over in India, the title is "Annana Pathiya," matching our young woman's pronunciation. [FOOTNOTE 3]

A popular remix mashes "Annana Pathiya" into (among other things) a couple of Telugu hits, fiercely percussive tracks. Other Indian DJs take this idea and embellish it, mess with it, e.g., this, and here is the best messed (though with dropout in the middle):

Best messed Indian mashup:


And mashed into yet another Indian language (I think) here.

Next we go to the Philippines, which for now is our last stop, though for me it was first: I initially ran across our little motif when strolling among the two hundred or so tracks and remixes DJ Danz put forth between January and November, and I immediately said "What is this?" and started searching. Turns out the excellent Danz is only fourth-best among the budots versions I've linked here. My favorite of the budots is this one, for not losing the young woman's sweetness even though he chipmunks her.

Fave budots version retains sweetness even when chipmunked (Track 16):


(And a couple more are here (Track 20) and here.)

A little bit counterintuitively, since they're what grabbed me originally, I'm ending up a bit disappointed by the budots mixes; their being so-called "Thai" remixes – see footnote 2: the budots tracks are still Filipino but (I'm presuming) are meant to be in more of a Thai style, which at least in these instances means the bass goes less onto exuberant offbeats, and the rhythm is steadier (incl. steady gtr chording, even though the guitar is on the offbeat) (but maybe my ears are inventing a distinction that isn't there – see the footnote).

One could argue that the invocation that's our source is already funny-HaHa and funny-Peculiar enough even before budots adds its high pitch. So a supposed "Thai" mix's relative steadiness is what you want from the rhythm. And obviously it works plenty well, worthy of both my Eardrums playlist and the rabbit-hole it pulled me into. My feeling, though, is if we were to add a gregariously pushy bass, it would improve the remixes by pushing us more towards peculiar rather than ha-ha and potentially bringing us back to the menace, danger, and disruption inherent in a mystery spell.

Maybe something like that is happening in India? Those Indian remixes seem to be pushing the tonal and rhythmic envelopes, sounding deliberately chaotic, or maybe it's just that I don't know enough to know what they're doing.

Don't think I have any special insight to accompany my story: we've got a motif that – thanks to musicians and DJs and dancers, on TikTok and Instagram and YouTube – changes its emotional and social complexion as it travels. This of course is true of any music that travels, even just from one ear to another, or from orchestra to orchestra and singer to singer, and sax player to trumpet player, etc. and now from many hands to many ears on the Internet. Don't know if my eyedropper's worth of description ("slamming rock song," "this singing really is lovely, and forceful, and catchy") even tells you much about the socioemotional life of the music as it hits me. Hope my general tone-of-voice conveys something, and hoping to uncover lots of written commentary on SE Asian dance music though I don't yet know where to look.

Finally, though (so I was wrong: the Philippines aren't our final stop), let's return to the song's country of birth and a non-budots remix, a "racing" remix by someone I assume is an actual Thai (though I wouldn't be surprised to learn that the Thai DJ is consciously mimicking Filipino budots' ideas of a Thai remix).

Thai racing remix:


LEGEND:
--Indonesian pop song, feels a bit indie: Nisa Fauzia "Culik Aku Dong" (2020)
--White-haired comedian: Noi Chernyim
--Slamming rock song: Ek Anupap ft. Noi Chernyim "Anantapatchaye Khunsai" (2022)
--Chili beanie: Bullwinkle the Moose.
--Super catchy pop chant&song by NZ-Kpop star: Rosé & Bruno Mars "APT." (2024)
--Favela funk track: MC Xangai "Menina do Job" (2024)
--Indonesian teenager: Niken Salindry "APT Thailand X Sayang Culik Aku Dong" (2024)
--Indonesian talent show contestant: Silvy Kumalasari "APT Thailand X Culik Aku Dong" (2025)
--Popular Indian mashup: DJ Love Rajesh "Annana Pathiya Vibe Mix" (2025)
--Popular and fiercely percussive track that I believe is in Telugu: Ramu Rathod "Ranu Bombai Ki Ranu" (2024)
--Best messed Indian mashup: DJ Strange "Anna Na Pathiya X Bombai Ki Ranu X Peelings" (2025)
--Favorite budots APT Thai remix: DJ EJ "Apt Thailand (Apateye) TikTok Viral (Thai Budots)" (2025)
--Racing (non-budots) remix by an actual Thai: DJ Tebang "APT Thai อะนันตาปัตชะเย New Version ThaiRemix SSKK Ver.BUSTEC" (2025)
--(Ref in footnote 2) Budots "Thai" mix of nice Indonesian pop song: DJ Kent James "Culik Aku Dong Thai Mix" (2025)

FOOTNOTE 1: Btw, the full movie is on YouTube w/ English subtitles as The Holy Man 3 (I haven't watched yet; honestly, from the clip it doesn't look like it's very good); our scene shows up at 1:05:46, the subtitles barely making an effort at the chant.

FOOTNOTE 2: So, the young woman basically covers the cover, a move Richard X would appreciate. Btw, in the 30-day interregnum between the teenager's version and the young woman's version, a Filipino remixer does a budots mix of our nice pop song, just as I'd predicted when I introduced nice pop song in my prologue. Is the only remix of it I've found that doesn't also interpolate Apt Thai. Can't totally tell 'cause the voice is chipmunked, but I'm pretty sure it's the original nice-song vocal, not the teenager's. Important to note that, in the budots genre, calling something a "Thai mix" isn't specific to this song – which is originally Indonesian anyway – or to songs with a Thai connection. In our story, it's the added chant (which is not part of this particular remix) that's Thai. But lots of budot tracks are "Thai mixes," not just this one. To be honest, I haven't yet figured out the difference between Thai budots mixes and plain old budots mixes (which are all being done by Filipinos). The "Thai" mixes sometimes have the word "disco" attached, so I'd surmise they're more regular in their beats – the bass going less ebullient on the off-beats than it does in usual budots. A little comparing seems to support the hypothesis of a relative "Thai" steadiness. But I haven't done enough budots listening to really confirm it, and I've done very little listening to actual Thai electronic dance music. So I'm basically talking out my ass. Fwiw, the two budots Apatayes on my Eardrums playlist are more on-the-beat (so "Thai") compared to the not-Apataye budots on the playlist, as are the other two budots Apatayes I link, all but one of the four being labeled a Thai remix.

FOOTNOTE 3: Interestingly, the Indian YouTube DJs tend to advertise their virality by adding "Instagram" rather than "TikTok" to their titles.