I've said it before and I’ll say it again: we live in very interesting times. People continue to behave in strange and unfathomable --- sometimes happy-making, sometimes dismaying ways. Headlines seem to be made for some truly strange reasons; sometimes no reason at all! Here are some of the strange stories from 2019 that caught the eye – did you catch them or miss them?
The nondescript image of an egg became hugely viral for no particular reason. It became the most-liked Instagram photo on Instagram, comprehensively dethroning Kylie Jenner’s post which was the previous most-liked on the platform.
Marrying a quilt sounds very, very strange… until we realise that have in the past, people married a pillow, a cutout of themselves, the Eifel Tower, a truck, a blowup doll and even a wall.
There is clearly no limit at all to the stupidity of various internet challenges. Some kid threw a cheese slice at his younger sibling, the video went viral and then everyone was throwing cheese slices at kids. The cheese challenge proved beyond doubt that the human race is doomed on account of terminal stupidity.
Ranveer Singh shared the video of Aunty G doing a rap from his movie Gully Boy. She was #BohtHard according to him and she quickly went viral.
She shamed some young women for their clothes. The women shamed her back. It was all rather ugly and the episode highlighted much of what is wrong with us as a society: we judge, we hate and we blame others based on little information and often no reason.
Letting a horrid exoskeletal creature crawl over one’s face is a ‘challenge’ for sure. But the question begs to be asked why!
Watching JCB excavators excavate – or JCBKiKhudai became a thing. Why? Who can tell in these things?
They thought of gulab jamun ki subzi and even put gulab jamun on pizza. They made rose Maggi and chocolate dosa then dreamed up kurkure milkshake.
Actor Rahul Bose ordered bananas and was billed for over four hundred rupees. It came to be known as having a Rahul Bose moment.
Did he? Didn’t he --- fart while on TV? #FartGate made headlines in many countries.
Greta Thunberg made an impassioned plea calling on world leaders to do something about climate change. For some reason she and her words seemed to really annoy a lot of very powerful old men.
She dared to not do what an entitled, out-of-control man wanted her to do and he shot her – in the face. This once again focused attention on the patriarchal mindset that results in incidents like this, about the general lack of respect for women in society. There were a lot of very strange headlines in 2019 --- some that dismayed us and others that made us shake our heads wryly at sheer human stupidity.
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