South Indian movies are definitely going places. Among the top ten Twitter hashtags in India this year, 7 south Indian movies have made it to the coveted list, with Vijay’s recent movie #Sarkar grabbing the top spot. Following #Sarkar is Ajith’s yet to be released Tamil flick #Viswaasam, followed by Mahesh Babu’s April release #Bharat Anne Nenu, a social satire on the prevailing condition of the education system in the state. After that comes Jr NTR’s #Aravinda Sametha, which saw a massive box office collection of over Rs 100 crore in three days worldwide, and Ram Charan Teja’s #Rangasthalam, a period drama set in rural Andhra.
Rajinikanth’s Kaala, which introduced the first ever Rajinikanth emoji on Twitter, also made it to the top 10 Twitter India hashtags.
#MeToo among the Top 10 most influential moments in India on Twitter in 2018. #ThisHappened pic.twitter.com/8ITInD2t2u
— Twitter India (@TwitterIndia) December 6, 2018
It is interesting to note that Vijay’s #Sarkar also managed to make it to the top spot in Twitter’s most “influential moments” this year, trailed by the #MeToo movement that had taken the Indian Twitter scene by storm.
Bollywood’s most celebrated couple #Deepveer bagged the seventh position in Twitter’s most influential moments while #Karnataka elections, #Kerala floods and #Justice for Asifa were at third, fourth and sixth positions respectively.
Other moments that made it to the list includes #Aadhaar, #IPL 2018, #Whistle Podu and #Asian Games 2018.
Twitter’s most influential moments are calculated on the basis of the number of times a particular subject is discussed on the micro-blogging website, including multiple hashtags, while the top 10 hashtags takes into account how many times a word is used as a hashtag on the site.
Skipper Sunil Chettri’s appeal asking fans to fill the stadium to watch the International Cup 2018 became the most retweeted tweet of 2018, with almost 60,000 retweets.
Virushka managed to grab the spotlight this year too, with Virat Kohli’s tweet on Karvachauth being the most liked tweet on Twitter for the year.
Not surprisingly, Prime Minister Narendra Modi tops the list of the most talked about Indians, followed by Rahul Gandhi, Amit Shah, Yogi Adityanath and Kejriwal. Actors in the list include Pawan Kalyan, Shah Rukh Khan, Vijay and Mahesh Babu.
Note: Links to tweets were added later, after they were available on Twitter India's official handle.