MSD’s ‘Bole Jo Koyal’ to trend of ‘look between letters on keypad’: Starcom's April 2024 trends report

Delhi: Starcom has unveiled the Trend Report for April 2024. This report aims to offer a deep dive into various realms, from sports and entertainment to the world of reels and beyond. The Culture report is powered by BUZ AI. 

The report covers trends across 4 major platforms –

1. Google and X (formerly called Twitter)

1.1.    Cricket 

1.2.    Movies, Music and Entertainment

1.3.    General 

2. Spotify

3. Instagram

3.1. Reels

3.2. Memes

1. Google and X (formerly called Twitter)

The IPL which started at the end of March exclusively dominated conversations as more matches went down to the wire and more runs were scored per match than ever before. 

IPL also drove conversations around younger players from various franchises who contributed to their teams success. The IPL was a distant first when it came to online chatter in April with topics like celebrations, current events, non-IPL cricket, sports and entertainment being discussed less than usual among the netizens. 

The results of various competitive exams were announced during this period, as were the T20 World Cup squads for a few countries. The occasions of Eid and hanuman Jayanti also found chatter.

The month of April saw 8 IPL matches a week, or nearly 32 in the month resulting in constant engagement of the property with its audience online. CSK was among the most mentioned teams with its fan base coming out to support the team, and their ‘Thala’ MS Dhoni. Players like Shivam Dube and captain Ruturaj Gaikwad were also extensively mentioned. 

The team’s back to back losses to KL Rahul led Lucknow Supergiants was also a trigger for its popularity as a topic of discussion online. Other teams that also found mention included KKR, DC, and Mumbai Indians. 

The board results of various state boards like UP and Punjab created chatter online in addition to the Union Public Service Commission exam results. 

Apart from cricket, football continued to grip the attention of netizens with the FA Cup being discussed at length, in addition to the tie between Bayern and Real Madrid. Real Madrid’s match against Manchester City was also popular among online football fans. 

Within celebrations as a theme, the occasions of Eid and Hanuman Jayanti drove conversations equally with people sharing wishes online. While Labour Day falls on May 1, chatter around it started at the end of April itself. 

For major platforms- Google and Twitter, the trends could be divided into 3 major buckets:

IPL

High scoring matches and closely contested run chases made the IPL buzz stronger. While there were those who simply debated and discussed team and player performances, there were also those who took the humorous route to converse about the matches. 

For example, there were memes on the PBKS-KKR match referencing the movie Veer Zaara which starred Shahrukh Khan and Preity Zinta, the owners of KKR and PBKS respectively. The meme came about in light of PBKS beating KKR by 8 wickets. Till then, in the tournament, KKR had been a top performer while PBKS was struggling to string together wins. The meme uses a still from the movie Kal Ho Na Ho starring Khan and Zinta where the PBKS owner seems to be telling Khan’s character off. 

There were also memes on SRH’s annihilation of its opponents’ bowling attack and on individual players like Travis Head. Head, who opens for SRH with Abhishek Sharma, an uncapped Indian player, has been dealing in sixes and fours mostly, and even has a century under his belt this season to make 396 runs so far. 

Topic modelling for IPL

Rohit Sharma’s birthday was among the most discussed topics during the month. The Indian team captain turned 37 on April 30 and was flooded with wishes from peers, seniors, and admirers alike. The anticipation for the Indian T20 world cup squad also resulted in a lot of chatter with netizens giving their views and discussing how would make it to the final 11. 

There was a lot of speculation around the fate of the likes of Hardik Pandya and Shubhman Gill who have not found form in the IPL so far. On a positive note, many rallied for the selection of names like Shivam Dube, Sanju Samson and Ruturaj Gaikwad after their exploits on the IPL pitch this season.   

Top trigrams for IPL

The most popular word combinations were around Rohit Sharma’s birthday as people wished him well on turning a year older. Coupled with phrases like “birthday Rohit Sharma” and “Rohit Sharma birthday”, “birthday brothaman happiness” and “brothaman happiness success” were also popular. People also discussed Hardik Pandya at length, debating on his captaincy of the Mumbai Indians which he took over from Sharma this year. 

The word cloud for IPL reflects a similar pattern as the trigrams and bigrams with words like Rohit, birthday, captain, Hardik and Sharma’s X handle imro045 making a prominent appearance. Together with these, other words like Thala (a term conferred on Dhoni by CSK fans), Virat, Shivam, hitman, and wholesome featuring was well.  

Movies, Music, and Entertainment: A tame month at the movies  

With final exams and the IPL underway, there was not much happening on the entertainment front. Barring a few small releases that made some waves and two big ticket Bollywood releases on the occasion of Eid, it was mostly quiet. 

Tiger Shroff and Akshay Kumar starrer Bade Miyan Chhote Miyan was the most talked about topic in entertainment. The movie released on the occasion of Eid along with Ajay Devgn starrer Maidaan, both hoping to cash in on the festival fervour. However, the buzz around the movies was tame as compared to other festival releases. Laapataa Ladies, which was released at the end of March, and was available on OTT at the end of April was also discussed. Salman Khan was in the news once again.

1.3 Others: Celebrations all around      

April saw multiple festivals which meant netizens took to social media platforms to celebrate and wish each other. Whether it was Eid, Baisakhi, or Hanuman Jayanti, each festival was celebrated with pomp online resulting in immense social media chatter. 

Another reason for celebration was the announcement of various examinations – board and competitive – results during the month. State boards like UP, Telangana, Madhya Pradesh, Uttarakhand, and Punjab declared the board results in April, as did the government announce the UPSC exam results. Central board – CBSE also declared its board result, all of which led to major discussion online. 

While it occurred at night time in India, the solar eclipse did not escape the attention of netizens in India. People discussed the science and the mythology around eclipses as part of the discourse while sharing pictures of the phenomenon on their social handles. 

The weather became a huge topic of discussion as parts of the country grappled with crippling heat and heat waves. On the other hand, Dubai experienced flooding in the month of April, visuals from which were shared extensively in the month on social media.

2.Spotify

The soundtrack from the Ranbir Kapoor starrer Animal continued its hold on listeners. "Pehle Bhi Main” retained the top spot with the highest number of plays. Husn took second spot  while Dunki’s “O Mahi” retained its place in the top ten list. Other songs in the top ten included One Love, Chaleya, Ankhiya Gulaab and Heeriye. 

Local hits were heard in cities of Punjab (Chandigarh and Ludhiana) and Delhi, though the popular songs in the two markets differed greatly. In cities like Mumbai. Chennai, Hyderabad, and Bengaluru, top local hits constituted a mix of film, and non-film music. Songs from the Telugu version of Salaar and HanuMan were popular in Hyderabad.

3.Instagram: Culture, Memes and Reels

The Dhoni-Bole Jo Koyal trend made a comeback in April with e-bicycle Emotorad’s tongue in cheek commercial referencing the popular meme from 2019. 

The 'Bole Jo Koyal' meme has been popular among Dhoni fans since a video featuring a lookalike of the ace wicketkeeper dancing to the song went viral. This in turn led to numerous videos of Dhoni grooving to the catchy beats. 

The new ad features MSD cycling down a picturesque mountainside singing the Falguni Pathak song with carefree abandon in a direct nod to the trending meme. Fans not only noticed this, but also enjoyed the creative which meant the video and older memes were once again shared in huge numbers. The connection between the player and the song never really died since as recently as 2023, an on-ground DJ played the song when Dhoni entered the ground during an IPL match. 

Another IPL related personality returning to the memedom was SRH CEO Kavya Maran, who is part of the family that owns the Sunrisers Hyderabad franchise. A permanent fixture in the SRH pavilion when the team is playing, Maran is known to be vociferous in her support of her team, and wears her expressions on her face with ease. Her joy at the SRH players doing well, and disappointment when things do not go to plan on the field are for all to see, which has made her a fan-favourite off-the-field and an internet celebrity of sorts. This year too, people captured her many emotions and shared the pictures at times as appreciation posts, and at times, as memes. 

The dance argument reel took Instagram by storm on April. Set to the music of Blue Monday by Above & Beyond, the reel feature two people dancing and arguing. The argument is shown in the text above the dancers and the moves are synchronised to match the back and forth in the debate. 

The reel trend was popular not only among couples who are famously notorious for bickering with each trying to prove a point, but also among siblings and close friends. The range of topics for argument ranged from what to eat, to dating issues, and more. While the dance moves were not the same in every reel as such, the synchronised back and forth on the debate points were the highlight of the reel.

Another popular reel trend was to the song Thank you, God by Dhvani Bhanushali. The lyrics of the song used in the reel are “Every time I look into the mirror, I say Thank You God. You did a damn good job….” The song, in this context, is used as a self-appreciation parallel and the reels enacted on this follow a similar theme by and large. For the most part, creators stood in front of the mirror and posed while either lip-syncing the song, or simply reacting to it. Some also used the song for before and after transitions, whether to show off progress in their fitness journey, or to show a makeup look they have tried on. Others simply choreographed a dance to the lyrics and posted as a reel. Whatever the mode of expression may have been, the song lyrics were a favourite with creators in April.

Apart from these reel trends a meme trend became very popular towards the end of the month. The gist of the meme trend is to spell out an answer using the location of the keys on a standard keyboard. For example, if the question is “Who is my best friend?”, the answer in this meme format would be “Look between Y and I on the keyboard” which indicates the letter “u”, also an internet shorthand for the word you, implying the reader. The meme has been very popular to the point that many people posted about the popularity, and how overboard the trend may have gone, using this meme format. 

The IPL fed fodder to the meme factory on Indian social media. People picked up key moments in a match, or around a match and meme’d it. For example, when KKR’s Rinku Singh broke his bat, gifted to him by Virat Kohli, during an innings, it was instant meme material, especially using a specific photograph in which Kohli looked miffed at young Singh.