It’s a dance, a viral meme, and now a trend among elite athletes.
Over the last few weeks, social media feeds all over the world have been flooded with videos of a sunglass-wearing young boy in Indonesia, balancing on the tip of a long racing boat and doing what is possibly the world’s coolest dance.
It’s being seen as the ultimate representation of ‘aura farming’ – an Internet phrase for the act of looking cool and building one’s ‘aura’ (another word for charisma, or rizz).
The moves, full of swag and easy to follow, are now being copied across the world with big sporting names like American Football player Travis Kelce, F1 driver Alex Albon, the Paris Saint-Germain football team all jumping on the trend.
And behind it all is 11-year-old Rayyan Arkan Dikha, who told the BBC that the viral moves came to him on the spur of the moment.
“I came up with the dance myself,” he told BBC Indonesia.
“It was just spontaneous.”
The 5th-grader from a village in Kuantan Singingi Regency was making his debut at the national Pacu Jalur boat race. ‘Pacu’ means race and ‘Jalur’ refers to the long canoe-like boats that are raced.
Dikha is the Togak Luan – the dancer at the tip of the boat whose role is to energise the crew.
In the widely shared video, he wears a traditional outfit known as a Teluk Belanga with a Malay Riau headcloth. Standing on the prow of the speeding race boat which is being rowed by at least 11 adults, he blows kisses to his left and right before rhythmically moving his arms – all without much facial expression.
Videos featuring various sound tracks under hashtags like ‘aura farming kid on boat’ and ‘boat race kid aura’ have racked up millions of views on TikTok since late June. And Dikha himself has now been given a nickname, “The Reaper”.
“Dancing at the tip of the boat is not easy,” Indonesia’s minister of culture Fadli Zon told reporters at an event meant to fete Dikha.
“Maintaining balance as a dancer who motivates the Pacu Jalur rowing team is truly not simple. Perhaps that’s why children are chosen instead of adults – because it’s easier for them to keep balance.”
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