Viral This Week: #WT20, Shaktiman, Sri Sri Event and Vijay Mallya

Here is everything that kept the social media platform busy this past week.

Here’s your wrap of everything that went viral this week. (Photo: The Quint)

When you finish scrolling through your Facebook news feed, do you usually have a bunch of notifications on Twitter? And by the time you get done with the little blue bird, do your Instagram notifications start winking at you?

Here then, just for you, is a handy wrap of all the topics that kept social media platforms buzzing this week.

Viral Videos of the Week

Each year, there are some songs that make it to every Indian shaadi’s playlist. This British couple, Dave and Carol, added some desi spunk to their wedding by grooving to ‘London Thumakda’ from Queen.

On 14 March, a truly horrific video surfaced on the internet, showing BJP MLA Ganesh Joshi beating Shaktiman, a police horse part of the Uttarakhand Mounted Police for years, during a protest march. Shaktiman suffered fractures in one of her hind legs during the protest, which had to be amputated later.

Twitter Trends

Monday: #ThankYouSriSri

On 14 March, devotees of Sri Sri Ravi Shankar flooded the digital sphere with messages of gratitude for his World Culture Festival. The event, mired in controversies due to allegations of environmental damage and causing great financial loss to farmers displaced from the site, concluded after three days of obnoxiously spectacular programmes, only to generate more controversy due to the heaps of garbage left behind at the site.

Tuesday: #IndvsNZ

On 15 March, New Zealand gave India a sound thrashing in the World T20 opener.

Wednesday: #MediaHatesHindus

On 16 March, this self-explanatory but ideologically skewed, hashtag trended on Indian Twitter.

Thursday: #KingfisherHouse

On 17 March, SBI put up the defunct headquarter of the grounded Kingfisher Airlines in Mumbai – popularly known as Kingfisher House – up for auction, in an attempt to recover over Rs 1,600 crore in dues from loan defaulter Vijay Mallya.

Friday: #Shaktiman/#GaneshJoshi

On 18 March, Shaktiman, the police horse who was the victim of a brutal attack by BJP MLA Ganesh Joshi, had to undergo amputation of her fractured leg while Joshi was sent to judicial custody for 14 days.

Saturday: #IndvsPak

On 19 March, the hugely-anticipated India-Pakistan WT20 showdown at Kolkata’s Eden Gardens stadium dominated all conversation.

Facebook Buzz

The World T20 championship dominated conversations and hashtags this week, with
cricket fans feverishly speculating batting line-ups and comparing stats, only to be disappointed thoroughly when India received a thrashing at the hands of New Zealand on opening night.

Facebook was also occupied with developments in the US presidential campaigns, with rumours of current President, Obama, declaring support for Democrat candidate Hillary Clinton, feeding fuel to the fire. Other topics that showed up on user news feeds were the bomb attacks in Peshawar and Nigeria, ban on sale and manufacture of Vicks-500, Shaktiman – the injured police horse, and the release of Kapoor and Sons.

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