2017 was a year of pleasures, surprises, jokes and nasty dinners where you heard your father speak politics for the first time. Can we sum up the whole year? Not possible. But here we take a look at, what the economists would call, suggestive trends. From cringe pop to right wing outrage over Padmavati, to the pointless virality of the 'Jimikki Kammal', the year certainly was a feather in the cap for the millennial generation. Here we take a hard look at the good, the bad, and the ugly.
We start with cringe pop, the latest 'genre' of 'music'. It was the year 'Dhinchak Pooja' made headlines. But a certain Om Prakash Mishra made news when he posted a song, Aunty ki Ghanti. Not only was the music an assault to the senses, it was wildly offensive to women. What was appalling was that a petition to take down the video was met with immense protests. Youngsters came out in thousands on the streets of Delhi, singing the song as loud as they could. This is the same Delhi that witnessed candle-light marches during the Nirbhaya scandal.
2017 was also the year of hashtags. There is hardly anyone left to jump on the social media bandwagon and news outlets too were eager to join. And so begins the time of news hashtags. Were they funny? Yes. Check it out as we launch our own 'identify' your hashtag contest.
A recent order mandates a ban on condom commercials between 10am and 8pm. Yes, there won't be any contraceptive ads because sex education isn't something that we are going for. Considering we are a country with 1/6th of the world's population, you would think there would be a lot more focus on sex education. But alas, this is not to be!
Students from a prominent school in Kerala were suspended for hugging. Yes, hugging. School authorities say a male student congratulated his female friend after the latter's performance by hugging for a few seconds. Authorities emphasised that it lasted for a few seconds and condoned it because well, hugging someone or even holding hands, according to the school authorities, is indecent. We wouldn't be surprised if they soon issue a directive to students to wear blinkers on!
Zara stores were attacked by MNS activists because some of the products had 'Made in Pakistan' on them. So even our attires need to exude nationalism. In that case, let's just hope that India-China relations don't reach a boiling point!
Stoners, put your bongs down get out of your couches. The winter session of the parliament will consider legalising marijuana, and it is time the 'green bros' get it together for once.
It was also a year of bans and censorship as far as films are concerned. Padmavati continues to be entangled in controversies and the films is yet to receive certification. Sexy Durga ran into trouble because well, you know........the name?
The two most used words in 2017, in India, were 'fake news' and 'cow' . So we decided to make a drinking game of it. How many of you can identify whether the below given 'fake news' about cows are real 'fake news' or fake 'fake news'? "A Muslim blows up a bomb inside a cow's mouth". "A.R. Rahman opposes cow slaughter". "A cow in Udupi has the world map on its side". For your information, all of them are 'real' fake news!
Zomato ran into trouble over an ad on 'Mac n Cheese' and 'Butter Chicken', because they wwere abbreviated as 'MC' and 'BC'. People couldn't help but call it sexist and cheap and Zomato had to issue an apology and withdraw the ad because well India is very tolerant!
Supreme Court's much needed order on a ban on cracker sales during Diwali in Delhi was met with vehement criticisms of it being a propaganda against Hinduism. The fact that Delhi is choking itself with pollution wasn't enough logical for people apparently.
Priyanka Chopra ran into trouble over her attire when she met Prime Minister Modi, because apparently, it wasn't 'Indian'. It is as if women in our country don't have the freedom to wear what they want to.
Irrfan Khan too caught the ugly side of social media when he posted a picture with his wife. The minority community quickly took offence to the issue because Irrfan's wife was wearing nail polish! Irrfan, how dare you post something as harmless as this in a country so tolerant?
Sunny Leone's scheduled performance in Bengaluru was called off after 'responsible' Indians protested against it. The reason they gave was that Sunny did not represent the 'Kannada' culture! I guess then we should all just keep to our homes from now onwards then.
AIB too had a rough year after they posted a meme on Snapchat of Prime Minister Narendra Modi. A criminal defamation and obscenity case was registered by the Mumbai police against the comedy group. How dare AIB make fun of the PM? We only make fun of Trump and every other leader here. Not our own!
Capital dumping was another issue in the limelight were Indian startups complained that their foreign counterparts in India were getting too much funds from outside. Well, it is time to wake up, these startups too received most of their funding from outside India!
Baahubali 2.0 ran into trouble earlier this year before its release, because one of the actors, Satyaraj, made a comment regarding Tamilians. No, the comment was not made recently. It was made a decade ago, and yes, the protesters woke up 10 years later to make an issue out of it!
A driverless metro crashed during a test run and the fault was attributed to 'human error'. Yes, this will only happen in India!
Jimmikki Kammal, a popular Malayalam film song became India's very own Gangnam style, with the song gaining polpularity with Indians and foreign celebrities alike. Kerala witnessed a lot of flash mobs which were well received, until a group of Muslim girls decided to groove to the song on 'World Aids Day'. Apparently this was not the 'conservative' way of doing things!
The much talked about 'Virushka' wedding too rubbed of some people the wrong way. A BJP MLA questioned the couples' loyalty to the nation because they decided to get married in Italy!
And finally Smrita Irani or 'Smriti Irony', as one twitter user put it, took to social media to say that the GST launch was instrumental to a boom in CA jobs! Twitteratti was soon to pounce on the minister drawing parallels to other incidents taht could lead to job booms such as—earthquakes leading to job creation int he construction sector, dengue outbreaks helping in making private hospitals prosper, and so on.
