In 2018, the memes came, they saw and they conquered. From Critic Aunty with honest film feedback to Priya Varrier and her iconic wink worthy of a kajal ad to Somvati Mahawar ushering in her morning motivations of chai peelo... the ladies really brought the laughs this year.
PewDiePie’s 78 million subscriber base has long been challenged by T-Series’ current 76 million. Watching their numbers change had me feeling like an overzealous parent at their kid’s swimming competition. The main point of contention here has PewDiePie amassed his subscribers through his unique brand of original content or let’s-plays, but T-Series has the natural pull of anything Bollywood and music, so who’s really working for it here? The campaign to ‘crush’ Pewds has led to a quite cringey army of 9-year-olds vowing vengeance “for the sake of memes”, with the movement heading to Bangladesh. There’s nothing as unifying as hundreds of 9-year-olds screaming bloody murder for a YouTube channel.
Wandering down the darker path of the web shines a light on a lot of videos in which people ranted at each other out of hatred based on race, gender, political belief and more. It’s terrible to think this still happens in an age when progressive discourse should be taking place. When certain global leaders are open champions of these acts of hatred, it doesn’t set a precedent for the rest of us — though we are free-thinking individuals with the right to freedom of expression. Then it turned to so many fashion houses being the bearers of such an attitude.
The Internet, this year, was gas-lit by conflict. Was this week’s column pessimistic? Maybe, but I believe rightfully so.
Rants and ramblings across cyberspace
