“But first, let me take a selfie!” went the chorus of The Chainsmokers’ 2014 hit simply titled “Selfie”. The catchy number went on to become one of the most iconic representations of a large part of global youth culture, where young people are devoted to documenting and sharing every life event, however banal.
Cut to 2018; a stroll down Marine Drive, Worli Seaface or Carter Road in Mumbai is enough to prove how young Indians armed with high quality cameras on their smartphones have adopted the “selfie” culture.
In fact, data released by social media company Instagram as part of its “2018 Year in Review” shows that India’s financial capital topped the list of most geotagged locations in India this year.
On the second spot was New Delhi, followed by Bengaluru, Hyderabad and Ahmedabad comprising the top five. Pune was number six, followed by Chennai, Jaipur, Surat and Kolkata making it to the top 10.
The most used hashtag in India in the year 2018 was #love, said Instagram, closely followed by the hashtags #instagood and #fashion.
Power couple Virat Kohli and Anushka Sharma had the most loved and second most loved post in India respectively.
Globally, Instagram said use of advocacy hashtags was on the rise, with the top ones for 2018 being #metoo with 1.5 million posts; the related #timesup came in second with 597,000 posts. In third place was #marchforourlives with 562,000 posts; this was used by the student community in the U.S. to demand for stricter gun laws.
On the lighter side, the top dance movement of 2018 came in the form of the #InMyFeelingsChallenge, or as it was popularly known in India, #KikiChallenge. The challenge, which was criticised by many for encouraging unsafe driving, entailed jumping out of a moving car and performing a dance while walking alongside it to pop sensation Drake’s hit song “In my feelings”.
The hashtag community which recorded the highest growth in 2018 was #fortnite, an online video game that was launched in 2017 and took the world by storm this year.
Instagram also said the happiest geotagged location in the world was Disneyland Tokyo as it had the highest number of smiling emojis used in captions.
