The Teletubbies Revenge

A TikTok challenge involving Indonesian content creators was later circulated online with a false story claiming the men were thieves punished by residents. (Digital Illustration: GoBeyondLocal)

The Teletubbies Revenge

The video looked like the kind of thing that would be difficult to explain without seeing it.

Two men appeared almost completely covered in tape. Their bodies were restricted by layer after layer, while the shapes around their heads made them look like strange homemade versions of characters from Teletubbies.

Then came the story attached to the footage: they were thieves in Indonesia, caught by residents and punished in an unusually humiliating way.

The video was real. The story attached to it was false.

The men in the footage were Syahroni Muhammad and Feri Wedon, content creators from Malang in East Java.

They were involved in producing humorous material for Batre TV and made content for platforms including YouTube, TikTok and Instagram.

The tape-covered scene came from one of those pieces of content rather than a criminal incident.

The idea began during a TikTok livestream.

A viewer gave the creators a challenge and sent a digital gift connected to the request. The challenge was to wrap their bodies completely in tape.

They accepted.

The result was the bizarre scene that would later circulate around the world: two grown men covered in tape, with only parts of their faces left uncovered. The shape of the tape around one of the men was enough for viewers to compare the appearance with Tinky Winky and other Teletubbies characters.

There was another part to the challenge. After being wrapped, the men ate terasi, an Indonesian shrimp paste. Syahroni explained that this made them appear to be in pain in the footage.

That detail mattered because it helped create the false impression that something terrible had happened to them.

A viewer seeing only the short clip could easily miss the livestream context. There was no explanation of the challenge in the version that later travelled widely. Instead, the footage appeared alongside a claim that the men had been caught stealing and were being punished by local residents.

The more dramatic version was also easier to understand at a glance. Two men were covered in tape. Their appearance was unusual. The Teletubbies comparison was obvious. Add a claim about thieves and neighbourhood punishment, and the video suddenly had a ready-made story.

The clip was then taken from its original context and reposted by another social-media account.

Syahroni identified an Instagram account called Harian Kampung as one of the accounts involved in spreading the misleading narrative. He said the video was given a description that did not match what had actually happened.

From there, the claim moved across social media.

People who encountered the repost did not necessarily see the original livestream or know anything about the men involved. They saw an image that appeared to show two helpless men and a caption explaining that they were criminals who had been caught.

The false version became so widely shared that the men were later asked about the footage.

Syahroni identified himself and Feri as content creators and rejected the claim that they were thieves.

He explained that the men had been taking part in a TikTok challenge. They had not been caught stealing a motorcycle, and the tape was not a punishment imposed by residents.

Syahroni confirmed that he and Feri were content creators completing a livestream challenge, and that no theft or vigilante punishment had occurred.