A wooden log with arms, legs, big eyes and a bat. Plus a rhythm you can’t get out of your head: “Tung, tung, tung … Sahur.” If you spent any time on TikTok in 2025, there was no getting around Tung Tung Tung Sahur. But where does the character come from – and what does it have to do with Ramadan?
The stage: Italian brainrot
In early 2025, a wave of AI-generated fantasy creatures appeared on TikTok: a shark in sneakers called Tralalero Tralala, a crocodile that is also a bomber plane (Bombardiro Crocodilo), a ballerina with a cappuccino for a head. Add pseudo-Italian names and an AI voice telling completely absurd stories. The umbrella term: “Italian brainrot”. Fittingly, “brain rot” had already been Oxford’s Word of the Year for 2024.
A character from Indonesia
Tung Tung Tung Sahur is counted as Italian brainrot, but its roots are in Indonesia. The character appeared in February 2025, and its name is pure onomatopoeia: “tung tung tung” imitates the sound of the kentongan, a wooden slit drum.
During Ramadan in Indonesia, groups traditionally walk the streets before dawn, drumming to wake the neighbourhood for sahur – the last meal before the day’s fast begins. The wooden figure with the bat is that wake-up call in person, so to speak: a drum that hits back.
From meme to phenomenon
Tung Tung Tung Sahur quickly became the best-known character of the whole trend – and outgrew it. It is a central figure in the Roblox game “Steal a Brainrot”, made it into the 2025 Panini sticker album for Italian brainrot and has even been playable as a Fortnite skin since April 2026.
Why this one?
Because amid the chaos of brainrot characters, it embodies a surprisingly clear idea: one sound, one object, one mission. And because it looks so ridiculously serious while doing it. If you know it, you grin. Everyone else sees a very determined piece of wood.
Tung Tung to wear
This exact character is available as the Tung Tung Tung Sahur shirt: complete with arms, legs and bat, embroidered in colour, small on the left chest of a heavyweight white cotton tee. More designs are in our embroidered T-shirts collection.