With COVID-19, life seems to have come to a standstill. When social distancing is the need of the hour, the internet has become our saviour. During this months-long lockdown, we’ve mostly spent time sleeping, eating, socializing through the internet and repeating! In these gloomy times, we had some viral internet trends, that made our lives somewhat interesting.
In this blog, I’ve talked about 9 such trends which I observed during the COVID-19 lockdown. Do read it and check out if you are up to date with the trends or missed out on any.
Table of Contents
1. LUDO KING
Do you remember the time when everybody started putting stories of playing Ludo King with friends? It sort of became the national online game of India during the period of quarantine, when we couldn’t physically meet to play. Gametion’s founder Vikash Jaiswal stated that the traffic on Ludo King increased significantly during the lockdown. And I was the part of this trend. But it turned so addictive to me that uninstalling seemed to be the only option. Anyways if you really need something to pass your time, Ludo King is a great gaming option to revive childhood memories through technology.
2. DALGONA COFFEE
Dalgona Coffee or ‘phitti hui coffee’ as most people liked calling it, was a trend started on TikTok, which spilled over to all platforms of social media. Even YouTubers shared their recipes of this ‘quarantine coffee’. Dalgona coffee is simply a thick, frothy layer of coffee over a glass of cold milk.
I gave it a try as well, and after 25 minutes of hand blending the coffee, it submerged into milk as I made it using milk powder. FAILED DALGONA ATTEMPT, huh!
If you haven’t already tried, go give it a try!
3. HOME-COOKED
You must have heard everyone saying ‘Lockdown me to sab chef bangye hai‘ and that turned out true for me too! When you are addicted to junk and all of a sudden you realise you can’t go out to eat or even order online, you have no other option than cooking it yourself! Some of the popular lockdown recipes include Cake, Samosa, Pizza, Burger and momos, which I realized were much healthier and scrumptious when cooked at home.
During this period, YouTube was loaded with NO INGREDIENT-RECIPES like No Cheese, No Oven, No All-purpose flour PIZZA owing to lack of available ingredients during the lockdown.
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4. GUESS THE GIBBERISH
Guess the Gibberish is a challenge created by an Instagram user @gu_christopher that turned out to be a hit filter on Instagram and TikTok. The word ‘Gibberish’ means nonsense. And this challenge was all about making some sense out of the words with no sense. Once you activate the filter and start the video, it shows you some words without meaning and you have to rephrase them logically within 10 seconds.
5. DON’T RUSH CHALLENGE
If you didn’t see #Don’tRushChallenge on Instagram or TikTok, you haven’t really scrolled your social feeds. This challenge is about sudden transformation. One has to hold an object, throw it in front of the camera and another person, sitting at another place will catch an object from similar position. Club the videos of all participants and you are done! Many make-up artists tried it out with a brush and made it #PassTheBrush. Some people did similar videos for wishing birthday of friends.
6. COUPLE CHALLENGE
For the couples who live together or are married, lockdown turned out to be a great opportunity to know each other better. With this, some challenges like #CoupleChallenge went viral and were accepted by a lot of couples. This challenge was all about testing who knows the other better with a small questionnaire. The game is simple. You will get certain questions like Who is more romantic? Who apologizes first after a fight? You both have to sit together and point at the person who resembles or has more of the qualities mentioned in the question. The game overall tests the chemistry of the couples and also gives them moments of a giggle.
7. BINOD
BINOD was all over the internet recently! A lot of netizens didn’t even know why it was viral, yet they became a part of this trend. Lol. Memes and comments were filled with the text ‘BINOD’. A youtube channel named ‘Slayy Point’ made a video on the kinds of garbage comments on the videos of Indian YouTubers. They gave an example of BINOD THARU who always comments his name ‘BINOD’. And since then it was all over the internet. Renowned companies like Zomato, Swiggy and many others posted memes on BINOD as well. PAYTM had earlier changed its name to ‘BINOD’ on request of a netizen, to keep up with the trends. It looked like the world had become BINOD.
8. RASODE ME KAUN THA?
This one is the latest one spilled over the internet. There was a scene in a Hindi soap opera ‘Sath Nibhana Sathiya’ in which a lead character ‘Kokilaben’ asks ‘Gopi Bahu’, “Rasode me kaun tha?” A music producer on Instagram, Yashraj Mukhate became an overnight sensation for making a rap on the ‘Rasode me kaun tha’ scene, that has become a hit. If you haven’t seen it yet, do check it out as it is still trending:
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9. SERIOUS HASHTAGS
Apart from these fun viral challenges and memes, a lot of serious issues have been on the air. Some of these include:
#BanTikTok
This hashtag has been no. 1 trend on twitter before its official ban in India. There were multiple reasons behind this hate for TikTok among the netizens. Some of these were: the promotion of Acid Attack (when a TikToker, Faisal Siddhiqui posted a short video that was considered to promote attacks on women), India-China relations (owing to border conflicts at Galwan Valley) and YouTube vs TikTok (when CarryMinati roasted TikTokers)
#JusticeForSSR
The 34-year old actor Sushant Singh Rajput, allegedly committed suicide in his Bandra house. His death became a mystery. From giving it the name of suicide due to nepotism to calling it a murder, his fans have united to fight for his justice. It’s been almost 4 months and netizens haven’t let the matter blew away.
#MentalHealthMatters
Mental Health gained popularity yet again when the cause of Sushant’s Death was known to be a suicide as a result of depression. The hashtag was trending on Twitter and Instagram with people expressing their concerns and calling out to talk about it openly and not considering it a taboo.
ALSO READ: Mental Health: Should We Just Talk About It?
#BlackLivesMatter
‘Black lives matter’ was an international movement, which got due attention in India as well. It was a movement against police brutality that lead to the killing of black people in the U.S. Similar hashtags related to racism also became a trend in India against fairness companies like ‘Fair&Lovely’ and matrimonial sites like ‘Shaadi.com’ which were said to promote the idea of Fair=Beautiful.
#JusticeForNirmalaPanta
A united call against rapes and failure of systems in delivering justice was trending with #JusticeForNirmalaPanta, when Nirmala, a 13-year old girl was raped back in 2018 but hasn’t got justice by now.
By these, we can surely see the potential of Social Media in setting trends, making information viral and making matters the talk of the town. We must, therefore, be cautious of what we are sharing and what impact it can leave. We should also ensure that we keep our dissented opinions in public domain and fight for the right.
These were 9 viral Internet trends which I observed during the lockdown. Let me know how many of these you tried. Also, is there any trend I missed out but it should have been in this list? Do comment and let me know.
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Very much true!!! lockdown has been crazy all over.. lovely content at one place👌👍 good work!!
Haha truly!
Thanks 🌺
tali and thali was another great stuff and best example of unity of india. Good job keep it up best wishes
Agreed! How did I forget that 😏
And thanks! 😊
Laptops left the chat when they got to know Gopi bahu is on her way to Star Plus!🥴
Tiktok vs YouTube was also a big part of the Lockdown that ended up banning Tiktok 😂😂😂😂 and then there was Neha Dhupia’s “It’s her choice” 😂😂😂😂😂
Haha true! I mentioned about Youtube vs Tiktok under #BanTikTok. And indeed, “It’s her choice” deserves a place in this list.😂
So so true👏😂lockdown was fun due to these trends only….
Haha yeah bro!😎
So so true…lockdown was fun due to these trends only😂😂
Yaa lockdown was amazing with these things, nice content
Yaa lockdown was amazing with this things.. Lovely content
Thanks a lot!
Loved the article
Thanks for giving it a good read!
Great work..
It summarised the lockdown time
Also great for those who remains out of these trends.. for them it’s a good platform to understand everything
👍👍
It means a lot to me! Thanks for your kind words.
Lockdown…. is one of the ‘LIFETIME’ experience for everyone on the earth. Not sure if anyone will see anything like this again in life, wish not.
You have summarized it pretty well. People will refer to your blog on Lockdown, years and years long, to share what happened during Lockdown days… 😀
True that! This experience is indeed unforgetable.
And, Thanks for such a sweet compliment!