“Ooga-booga-bug”
Bizarre Instagram mistake goes viral – what’s behind it?
Instagram sometimes throws out wild translations for comments like “Ooga booga” (symbolic image)
© SIphotography / Getty Images
If you’re wondering about strange Instagram comments like “Ooga booga”, you should click on the translation. But in case of doubt, this only raises more questions.
“Ooga Looga”, “Roofa boogalambaba”, “oogaboogaamalbabaoogabogga” – if you only understand train station when you hear these phrases, you are not alone. Instagram, however, claims to know exactly what is behind the nonsense texts. “I don’t want to be single anymore,” is the first phrase. “May you have a great day” the last one. The bizarre error has existed for at least a year. And it seems to be desired by Instagram.
The Ooga Booga bug (also: Ooga Booga bug) was first described on Reddit in February 2023. “I found a funny mistake,” reported user “Extreme-Guitar-9274” at the time. “If you comment Ooga booga and put two spaces after booga, Instagram translates it as ‘Be careful with the m****,'” he explained to the amused Instagram community. “Do whatever you want with this information.”
Wild Instagram translations
A small viral wave followed. Instagram users repeatedly commented on the phrase, which was reminiscent of comic sounds from the Stone Age, and quickly found variants that were similarly strange provided translations. They certainly weren’t included by Instagram on purpose: In addition to vulgar sex terms, the N-word could also be generated as a translation – by adding a ninja emoji. And: It also worked in other languages. “If you use hooga nuuga in French, something similar comes out,” one Reddit user reported. “Just with a worse choice of words.”
What the translations had in common in the early stages was that they were very vulgar, offensive and sometimes discriminatory towards various minorities.
Ooga booga is defused
What exactly is behind this is still not clear; Instagram has not officially commented on it. “Someone must have programmed it like that,” one user suspected in the first Reddit discussion. However, it is also conceivable that the translation AI used by Instagram is overwhelmed by the meaningless sequences of letters – and then starts spitting out meaningless sentences.
However, what speaks against this theory is that the image service defused the translations when the error began to go viral. As of December 2023, the original translations no longer work. Since then, Instagram has turned “Ooga booga” into just “Ooga-booga”. And the numerous other translations have also been significantly defused – as the examples above show.
Maybe that’s a good development: In this way, the bizarre fun factor is retained, but no one is insulted or discriminated against anymore. In this sense: Ooga booga.