Culture Round-Up: Ranveer’s photoshoot to ‘love storiyan’ - all that trended this July

Netizens never cease to find something to keep themselves engaged and entertained and July 2022 was no different. From sports to entertainment, to memes; there was a lot to discuss, diss, and celebrate in the past month. While Ranveer Singh’s nude photoshoot broke the internet, the ‘love storiyan’ part of Bhramastra’s song ‘Kesariya’ gave multiple people a headache. Here’s everything else that kept the internet buzzing the last month, as curated by Starcomm in its monthly culture round-up report.

The sports fervour rises

Conversations around football went up, majorly revolving around transfers, friendlies and rumours. In the English Premier League, Arsenal, Chelsea, Liverpool, ManCity and ManU were trending clubs of the month.

Cricket had fans talking over India vs England ‘best of three’ T20 series where India won by 2-1 and lifted the trophy. Ben Stokes’s retirement from ODI format also kept the internet buzzing. India celebrating former captain and celebrated cricketer MS Dhoni’s birthday trended on the internet.

Other trending conversations in the sports world included news of Sebastian Vettel’s retirement from F1; Question on Ferrari’s strategy team for making Alonso lose a podium; PV Sindhu winning Singapore Opens 2022 continuously for the third time; and Djokovic winning Wimbledon and being one Grand Slam away from Nadal’s record of 22 and 1 Wimbledon title away from Federer’s record of eight.

The tunes and rhymes

Music kept the whole community engaged with not only chartbuster songs but also their unexpected fan services. K-Pop was the one in limelight for the month of July as well. BTS was the buzz around the town all month for being selected as ambassadors for World Expo 2013 to be held in Busan, South Korea. Its members Taeyhyung and J-Hope are also catalyzing BTS’ buzz with Taehyung breaking local records for his song “Left and Right” with Charlie Puth and J-Hope releasing his new album “Jack in the Box”.

Next in line after K-Pop was Bollywood with Ranbir Kapoor and Alia Bhatt who have exponentially gone up the trending charts with their superhit release song “Kesariya” sung by Arijit Singh for the movie “Bhramahstra”. “Baarish aayi hai” a new song release, starring the viral Tejran couple (Tejassvi Prakash and Karan Kundrra) also took the music world by storm with fans going bonkers over it. “ShameOnEmiway” was also trending on twitter as the diss track fight between Emiway and Kr$na got heated and Emiway went too far with his new release “Machayenge 4”.

On Spotify, “Kesariya” has taken the Indian audience by fire, making them groove to its love storiyaan, “Excuses” by AP Dhillon still remains in top 5 showing Indian taste for low-fi rhythmic Punjabi raps. South hit “Kaandal En Kaaviye” by Sid Sriram and Sreejith Edavanana remained the top choice of audience. Sidhu Moosewala’s “Gangsta style” still remains trending among Indian music enthusiasts with his “295” and “last ride” remaining in top 10 all month long. Overall, the mood of the Indian audience has been quite romantic in the month of July.

Hollywood music had music fans talking over Jennifer Lopez and Ben Affleck getting engaged for a second time and getting married after 2004, which turned out to be a “perfect romcom ending” for the couple according to the fans and the couple has been trending ever since.

Conversations around content

Conversation in the entertainment industry revolved around movies and OTT releases with Stranger Things and Eddie Munsun taking the fans by storm with series’ unexpected twists and Eddie’s heart winning performance on “obey your master” in the upside down; The Grayman’s release on OTT platform, starring Dhanush has been one of the most awaited series by his fans and the trend results for Dhanush and Grayman says likewise; “Thor Love and Thunder” has been thundering the cinemas and social media with Chris Hemsworth “Thorofic” performance and getting people excited about the Marvel’s phase 5 timeline; “Shamshera” and “Bhramahstra” have been trending all over with Shamshera’s release last month and Bhramahstra’s viral ‘Kesariya” song release; Vijay Devarkonda and Ananya Pandey have been trending with their movie “Liger” trailer release by Dharma Productions; Kangana Ranaut has been gathering praise by many artists for her role as Indra Gandhi in her upcoming film “Manharika”.

Politics and more

The ‘Other’ category has seen a lot of viral developments in the last month, with political world getting Eknath Shinde as Maharashtra’s new CM; Prime Minister’s election in UK with Boris Johnson and Rishi Sunak being major contenders and Johnson finally winning; Historic fall in the Disney’s share price fall rally to $91; The saddening news of Shinzo Abe, former PM for b Japan, being shot in a targeted terrorist attack; Ranveer Singh stirring up a controversy in the B-town with his latest photoshoot; Unfortunate passing away for Indian singer, Bhupidner Singh at the age of 82; Unexpected demise of Ivana Trump, former wife of Donald Trump, at the age of 73; Draupadi Murmu being becoming the President of India; Maruti Suzuki announcing Grand Vitara and Mahindra’s Scorpio-N getting over 1 lac booking on its first day of booking window; and BGMI officially getting banned in India under Section 69A of the IT Act and delisted from Play store and Apple store.

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Trending on the ‘Gram

Instagram’s content and conversations can be segregated into 2 broad buckets- Trending Reels and Trending memes. Popular in reels were the “Addict” trend, with presenting what they are addicted to – whether their partner, some habits or just their guilty pleasures; the “Alo Alo Alo” dance trend with their kins; the “Cough and Dance” reel; “ This but That” trend showing how somethings are just unmatched in life; the fun “Orange Soda Betrayal” trend; the space crunch “Bahut Jagah hai, Nahi Jagah hai” reel in many interesting areas; the snap fashion transition reels for the fashion loving crowd; the “I am Jose Mourhinho” trend for the clever reels; and the “Anakin is gone” transition reel showcasing the fitness transformation journey of audience.

 For a more detailed document, write to rathi.gangappa@starcomww.com