indoBOOM is chinaSMACK’s edgy and interactive new little brother. This site’s vision and mission is to faithfully translate the exceptionally popular and interesting stories, pictures, videos, and other media content typically written in Bahasa Indonesia on Indonesian sites, forums, and social networks along with samples of the reactions of Indonesians netizens themselves translated into English for non-Indonesian readers. We aim to present an honest, unbiased, and unfiltered glimpse into Indonesian society and internet culture through a combination of what Indonesian netizens are talking about and what exactly they’re saying.
Launched August 8th, 2012 (8-8-2012), indoBOOM will be updated on a daily basis.
About Indonesia:
Indonesia is an archipelago country in Southeast Asia comprising around 17,500 islands located around the equator. There are approximately 237 million people living in Indonesia, making it the world’s 4th most populous nation. Although a secular state, 86 percent of Indonesia’s population is Muslim, making it the largest Muslim country in the world.
Indonesia’s islands are separated by seas and grouped into several clusters. The most populated cluster is centered around Java island, which is home to some 130 million inhabitants (60 percent of the country’s population) and is about the size of the state of New York.
Many renewable and non-renewable natural resources can be found in Indonesia’s vast land and maritime areas due to its geographic location on the Pacific Ring of Fire with high volcanic activities compounding the volcanic minerals over millennial into fertile grounds, numerous mining sites, and flourishing diversified and exotic land and marine lives.
As a country which also borders the Pacific Ocean, Indonesia is a member of the increasingly important 10-nation Association of Southeast Asian Nation (ASEAN) organization, G-20 world major economies group, and Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) forum. With rising influence in regional and global affairs, it is occasionally said to be the missing ‘I’ in the BRIC group of fast growing newly advanced economies.
Indonesia has an emerging middle class that enjoys purchasing luxury products like handbags, watches, and cars. Even so, much of Indonesia’s population still lives in poverty, unable to eat three times a day with children still dying from malnutrition. In 2011, the unemployment rate was around 6.6 percent but almost half of the population lives on less than US$2 per day. A lot of these problems are widely believed to be caused by political corruption, wealth disparity, inequalities in the healthcare and education system, the absence of state welfare for the poor, or racial and religious issues.
Support Us:
All of our contributors, translators, and administrators are volunteers and indoBOOM would not function without the many hours of work they put in every month. While we use advertisements on our website to help us defray our technical costs, hoping for the day where we have some left over to buy some coffee, your donation of any amount will help us maintain our website and support our efforts as we grow our audience. If you enjoy our hard work towards sharing an interesting side of modern Indonesia through what Indonesian netiens are reading and talking about, or just think we’re cute, we would sincerely appreciate a $10, $5, or even $1 donation. Thanks, gan!
Contact indoBOOM:
Should you be interested in contributing to an article or joining our team, please send us a message with the contact form below introducing yourself and telling us how you would like to get involved. If you have further comments, questions, or concerns, feel free to write us as well. We look forward to hearing back from you.
