We just can not stop talking about those viral moments in 2018.
This year, the Internet gave us some hilarity, some glorious memes and a lot of controversy from across Pakistan. Here is a look back at the buzziest moments which shaped 2018, for better or for worse:
During the Asia Cup 2018, the pictures of a young fan of the Pakistan cricket team became a social media sensation, both in India and Pakistan. Everyone wanted to know who the girl in green was? She finally spoke up in an interview to News18 about the madness of it all. “It is an amazing feeling and I never expected in my wildest dreams.” Adding that she was “just an ordinary girl.” Well, not to the Internet.
It’s wouldn’t be wrong to call 2018 the year of women in Pakistan.
There were unhinged levels of joy when the state-run Pakistan International Airlines (PIA) tweeted a picture of two female pilots steering an aircraft from Islamabad to Gilgit.
Back on ground, a fearless female police officer, Suhai Aziz Talpur, led an operation that saved the lives of diplomats, when heavily-armed terrorists attacked the Chinese Consulate in Karachi. Image of her walking toward the consulate, gun in tow, took the social media by storm.
Then there was Sara Tawab Umar, an additional assistant commissioner Peshawar, who brought her five-month-old baby to work while overseeing an anti-encroachment drive. Now, can you blame the Internet for falling in love with her and her child?
Remember the chaiwala of the 2016 fame? Unarguably, when the Internet sees talent, it runs to it.
This year we met 12-year-old Arshman Naeem, from Okara, whose voice boomed through Pakistan online, winning a standing ovation. The young boy’s cover of Atif Aslam’s “Dil diyan gallan” racked in over 530K views on YouTube alone.
A similar off-the-cuff video of a painter, Muhammad Arif, who took a few moments off work to share his renditions of “Hamari adhuri kahani” had everyone, get up and take notice, even across the border in India. The video, as expected, went viral. Arif’s studio-ready voice was enough to leave everyone asking for more. Now, if there was a Pakistan’s Got Talent, we all know who’ll be walking home with a prize.
In 2018, the Kiki challenge caught on like a craze. After Drake dropped his hit single “In My Feelings,” people across the world took up the dare to jump out of a moving car and dance alongside it. But who knew Pakistan’s state-run airlines, PIA, was a fan. On August 14, it posted a promotional video of a Polish tourist, Eva zu Beck, performing the popular challenge while dressed in green and white. Quickly, the video was the talk of, well, the country. But NAB, the anti-graft body, wasn’t amused. It accused the PIA of disrespecting the flag. Beck later apologised.
To be honest, we still don’t know what the hullabaloo was about, but here is Beck one last time, before 2018 ends.
It was the hug that caused a storm. On Prime Minister Imran Khan’s oath-taking, Indian minister Navjot Singh Sidhu and Pakistan’s army chief, General Qamar Javed Bajwa, exchanged greetings and a brief hug. During which the General proposed the construction of a Kartarpur corridor to provide visa-free access to Sikh pilgrims. The candid video triggered much debate and protests in India against Sidhu. Many took to the streets to burn his effigies. But, despite the controversy, promises were kept. In November, Pakistani and Indian officials sat together at the ground-breaking ceremony of the Kartarpur corridor.
He was the Batman Gotham city did not need.
During a brazen terror attack on the Chinese consulate in Karachi, Federal Minister for Water Resources, Faisal Vawda, arrived at the scene with a gun and bulletproof vest. Why? We are not sure. Images of him dropping in, unnecessarily, spawned unexpected and rip-roaringly hilarious memes. Which wasn’t the reaction Mr Vawda was expecting.
When your version of a song is so bad that the minister for human rights calls it a “massacre,” you have a serious problem. Singer Momina Mustehsan’s attempt at singing the classic “Ko Ko Korina” had the internet talking, or cringing. The rendition was a flaming disaster to such an extent that it led to a Twitter spat between Mustehsan and Shireen Mazari, the minister for human rights.
The photograph of a father and his two children, sleeping on a street corner in Lahore, on a cold winter night, was heart-breaking. Even the Prime Minister took notice and tagged the picture to announce the launch of shelters for the homeless. But a young businessman was quicker to respond and took the family under his care. He announced on Facebook that he had begun collecting donations to help the children enrol in a school. Here’s to a better 2019 for the young kids.
Last year, there was the BBC dad, and now there is the Al Jazeera dad.
A video of a Pakistani father went viral after he was seen shooing away his son, as he interrupts his Al Jazeera interview. The short clip sparked a frenzy of online speculation and memes. Let’s add him to the fall of fame of mortified fathers.
