With Spotify Wrapped making everyone’s mental health status public thanks to its year-end review, other apps have followed suit. The resulting heap of data — too much to monetise even on 5G — has produced some interesting insights. According to the Centre for Useful Analyses of Useless Apps (not to be confused with the government), the average Indian user in 2022 spent more time flirting with Zomato than on Tinder, received more offers on NGL than LinkedIn, watched more stories on Instagram than Netflix, read more fake news on Twitter than WhatsApp, and fulfilled more fantasies on Dream11 than OnlyFans.
Meanwhile, Facebook, which once used to convince India’s youth that they are not alone, is now persuading India’s old that they very much are. All this while 2022’s youngsters have moved on from Mark Zuckerberg’s dorm project to using their digital time far more rigorously and productively by maintaining Snapchat streaks.
Elsewhere, with collaboration from a bevy of delivery and financial apps, it is now possible to estimate an Indian’s position on the class ladder, depending on whether they receive their loans faster than their groceries.
Wondering what else happened while you debated if your position on the desirability ladder means you should move to Indonesia? Here’s presenting the top stories from the week that should have been.
December 5
Meghan Markle has recounted in painful detail how none of the royals (with the exception of Harry) agreed to watch all nine seasons of ‘Suits’ TT archives
- Netflix’s Harry & Meghan makes startling revelations regarding the harrowing discrimination its protagonists had to face during their time in the royal family. The most unsettling disclosures involve Prince William denying Harry a public platform to express his distaste for football, the late Queen invariably choosing Kate Middleton over Meghan Markle to gossip about her favourite horses and the reigning King and Queen Consort persistently reminding the Sussexes what a true love story looks like.
- Akshay Kumar has been roped back in for Hera Pheri 3 after being told that the climax of the film involves Raju raising the Tricolour and delivering a moving speech against illegal immigration, which was intially auditioned for by Baburao.
December 6
L.K. Advani calls himself “India’s first true journeyman politician”, before adding: “And I didn’t even need flights” TT archives
- As the demolition of the Babri Masjid completes 30 years, L.K. Advani, the man who starred in the most controversial Toyota advertisement till date, reflects on his Rath Yatra: “I chose the wrong path as I was misinformed. I should have taken more time to decide how the Rath Yatra could have covered more of south India. No wonder the BJP continues to struggle there.”
- Oxfam’s new India Inequality Report shows that gender inequality in Indian middle-class households steadily increases as one moves from the living room to the kitchen to the bedroom.
December 7
More than 100 countries, including India, have sent delegations to COP15, comprising officials who have not enjoyed a foreign trip since March 2020 Wikimedia Commons
- Nations participating in COP15, which is underway in Canada — not to be confused with COP27 that recently ended in Egypt, as both cater to different corporate agendas — resolve to protect and preserve the biodiversity of the planet by allocating a unique pronoun to each species currently alive on Earth.
- ChatGPT, an AI chatbot that is fast becoming the support system for intelligent incels, has been cancelled by The Gatekeepers of Shifting Ideas (GOSI) for “consistently refusing to have an opinion on anything and everything”.
December 8
Students who have been sneezing as well as protesting in China have been asked to self-isolate for the rest of their academic lives TT archives
- The Chinese government, which is still pretending to be more worried about the virality of Covid-19 than the virality of student protests, temporarily shuts down five universities after dozens of students are found to have sneezed on campus. Government officials suspect that dust from empty protest placards is responsible for the sneezing.
- Iran suspends its morality police after realising that another timeless social institution is far better at repressing the natural tendencies of women, that too without provoking a single Western media outlet. As a result, all members of the erstwhile morality police have returned to their families.
December 9
Deepika Padukone is all set to become the first Indian in history to touch the FIFA World Cup trophy on the day of the final. She may also be the last TT archives
- Deepika Padukone’s upcoming appearances in the FIFA World Cup final and Cirkus have been designed with the same objective — to ensure maximum Indian viewership for an overhyped affair involving Ranveer Singh that promises to be unmissable but could end up as unwatchable.
- Football writers covering the World Cup for The Guardian and BBC have been asked to rewatch every pre-tournament video about Qatar on their respective media platforms lest the exciting football make them forget what they are supposed to write on.