Our family of 13 has over 250 million combined followers. We love traveling the world together and creating content.
- Halilintar Anofial Asmid and Lenggogeni Faruk have 11 children, ages 10 to 28.
- The reality-TV stars have over 250 million followers on social media.
This as-told-to essay is based on a conversation with Halilintar Anofial Asmid and Lenggogeni Faruk. The following has been edited for length and clarity.
We've always loved traveling the world, and even as our family grew we were fortunate enough to be able to continue doing so.
During our travels we'd attract attention because we're such a large family. Our children love connecting with people. We'd get a lot of requests from people who wanted to take photos and videos with us.
At sites like the Eiffel Tower or the Leaning Tower of Pisa, it felt as though instead of these landmarks we were the big tourist attraction people wanted photos with.
As our fame grew, we wrote a book and created a YouTube channel
People wanted to know how, as a family of 13, we managed to stay happy. In response, we wrote a book that we published in 2015, "Gen Halilintar: My Family My Team," sharing how we travel around the world with our 11 children without the assistance of nannies or helpers.
We followed this up with two more books, and at one point we had the three best-selling books in Indonesia.
After the success of the first book, in 2016 we launched a reality show on Trans TV, a major Indonesian free-to-air channel.
We'd noticed a growing interest in digital content, and we started to focus more on social media. We started a YouTube channel where we made videos to share our lives with others. We have over 18 million subscribers on our channel.
We went on to release hit songs and launch a second reality-TV show.
As parents, we value education and make sure our family is a team
Despite the increase in our popularity, we didn't want to put any pressure on our children to produce content. We've always encouraged and supported our children's talents and pursuits. They only work on the parts of the videos they're interested in, and only when they want to. We encourage them to focus on their own interests, and we ensure that education is also a priority.
Our children each have different personalities and roles in the family, which is reflected in the content they decide to make. One may focus on cooking, while another enjoys pranks. Other topics include music, dancing, and fashion.
We have morning meetings as a family and talk at the end of the day so we can share what we've learned and experienced. This way if we have any problems or issues, we discuss them together.
Our family tagline is "my family, my team," and we try to make sure we live up to it.
We create our own content from start to finish
What's most unique about our family is that we produce everything ourselves. The ideas, scripts, production, and postproduction are all done "in-house" by the children themselves.
When we made the music video "Ziggy Zagga" in 2019 — our most watched and most ambitious video — each child had a role: One wrote the song, one directed the video, one did the choreography, and so on.
It was a difficult shoot that spanned seven countries and took multiple seasons to complete. But despite time limitations we worked together to create a video we were all proud of. Now it has over 180 million views.
Indonesian President Joko Widodo asked us to teach him how to create social content
We've been fortunate to be invited to the Indonesian presidential palace several times.
On one occasion, the president asked us how he could increase the number of subscribers to his channel, so we gave him some tips based on what we've all learned while making content together.
We've since collaborated with President Widodo. Additionally, when our eldest son was married, the president was the official witness at the wedding, signing the legal document.
Throughout our success, the key has been to stay true to ourselves
As our children have gotten older, they've matured, as have their content ideas.
For as long as we've been working together as a team, we've remained true to our authentic selves. We often get asked about the secret to our success, and we tell people to make something from the heart, be authentic, and be sincere. We treat our viewers like our friends and family.
These values were recognized when this year we were nominated for a Nickelodeon Kids' Choice Award.
Our family continues to grow
Our eldest son is now married with a child and has another on the way, so our family has continued to expand.
Despite being grandparents, we're busier than ever with work. We have a new song and music video coming out soon. We're also producing a movie and will be releasing another book. After all, for us, more family just means more inspiration.