Culture round-up: Celeb weddings and controversies rule the internet in November

Lined by the festivities and a number of celeb weddings, the month of November 2020 gave the netizens a lot to talk about. While celebs like Kangana Ranaut and Vir Das attracted controversies for their thoughts on India’s independence and the dichotomy of the nation, respectively, the Padma awardees caught the attention of netizens for their good work. Also, user posts on festivals like Diwali kept the web buzzing. Here is Starcom’s monthly report on what trended on the web in November 2021, keeping the users on digital platforms engaged.

Covid and Sports keep the conversation going

Conversations around COVID once again picked up with the word about the new Omicron variant spreading across faster than any of the previous variants. Many countries, Indian states, and advisory bodies issued warnings regarding the same. And with the efficacy against the new variant of the current vaccines under question - the internet remained abuzz with conversations.

On the other hand, various Cricket tournaments like ICC Men’s T20 World Cup, India vs New Zealand and Football tournaments including UEFA WC Qualifiers Premier League etc kept the internet hooked. Indians showed massive support for the Afghanistan team and Twitter was flooded with memes and posts cheering Afghanistan on and the T20 World Cup Final was won by Australia. In football, the Ballon D’Or was won by Lionel Messi and WC Qualifiers have been taking place between different countries.

Celeb weddings, controversies, and feats

November was also the month of celeb weddings – from Rajkumar Rao tying the knot with longtime girlfriend Patralekha to many other celebs including Malala Yousafzai, Aditya Seal, Paris Hilton, Shraddha Arya and others getting married. Their wedding pics were a massive hit on Instagram as well.

Simultaneously, Paul Rudd was named the ‘Sexiest Man Alive’ by People magazine and Kangana Ranaut & Vir Das invited backlash from the netizens; Kangana for her comment on ‘1947 was bheekh’ and Vir Das for his ‘I Come two Indias’ video.

Taylor Swift released her album ‘Red: Taylor’s Version’ and the audiences and brands alike went gaga over it. Starbucks India launched Taylor Swift’s favourite drink in honour of the album and served it in holiday red cups.

Reels continued to grow in popularity with artists like Badshah using the format to promote their new release- Jugnu. Rohit Sharma’s reel with fellow cricketers celebrating Shreyas Iyer's century in the debut match garnered over 2mn likes. Memes about the ongoing wedding season, ‘Yes-This But-That’, ‘Two Guys on a Bus’ memes kept the internet entertained.

In other news, the Padma awardees were felicitated this month and the list of winners included the likes of popular physicist HC Verma among others. The Air Quality in Delhi NCR dropped to dangerous levels post-Diwali and Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey announced he will be stepping down from his post and Indian Origin CTO Parag Agarwal will be replacing him as CEO and netizens on Twitter went berserk over it.

OTT and Cinema rule parallelly

On OTT, MX Player and Disney+Hotstar continued to be the most popular platforms in India. Special Ops 1.5 on Disney+Hotstar and Matsya Kaand on MX Player were amongst the most popular shows this month and Netflix’s Dhamaka, Red Notice, Meenakshi Sundareshwar, and Prime Video’s Jai Bhim were among the most popular movies.  Diljit Dosanjh-starrer Honsla Rakh, which was released in theaters last month got its OTT release with Prime Video this month.

Netflix took many measures to promote the direct OTT release of the multi-starrer film Red Notice. From on-ground events inviting audiences to come and steal from their shop to collaborating with multiple social media influencers, to even releasing a song- Laal Notice- in collaboration with popular artists like Badshah and Divine.

Theaters opened up to full capacity and films like Sooryavanshi, Bunty Aur Babli 2, Eternals raked in great box-office collections. But parallelly content on OTT platforms is garnering equally massive reach. The parallel release of Bunty Aur Babli 2 in theaters and Dhamaka on Netflix was a testament to the coexistence of both Cinema and OTT.

Popular ads

One of the most popular brand campaigns was Cred’s ‘Not an Ad’- bringing back Chacha Chaudhary and Supandi. What really caught the internet’s attention was 5 Star’s NothingCoin Bank- leveraging the increasing popularity of Cryptocurrency in India. People can walk into Nothing Coin Bank (located in Mumbai), which looks like any other bank, sit there on comfy sofas in an air-conditioned room and then the main task - ‘Do nothing!’ and mine the Nothingcoin. The currency earned can be redeemed on JioMart for coupons etc. There were many brand films on the occasion of International Men’s Day by brands like mankind Pharma, MensXP etc.