Social Media Day: Trending yesterday, where are these viral NCR residents today?

Doomscrolling on social media apps in the past year, you would have surely come across several Delhiites going viral for some reason or the other. Be it for being bindass dancers in public spaces or for taking up a novel business venture. A viral reel catapulted some towards becoming overnight social media sensations. They did garner fame and rebuke in equal measures, from the masses, but could they manage to sustain it? On Social Media Day (June 30), we get an update on some of the residents of NCR who went viral at some point in the past one year. Jaspreet Singh, Pankaj Rawat, Angkit Joshi, and Sharmishtha Ghosh became viral sensations in Delhi. Tilak Nagar 10-year-old kid: My viral videos reunited me with my mother Jaspreet Singh, 10, became the internet’s hero for courageously managing his late father’s food cart in Tilak Nagar.(Photo: Harsh Vardhan/HT) Jaspreet Singh, 10, became the talk of the nation this May when he was spotted manning his late father’s roll cart in Tilak Nagar. His video filmed a food influencer @mrsinghfoodhunter got 10.7M views then. “My viral videos have reunited me with my mother, who had danced herself from us in February,” says Singh, who continues to run the cart in Delhi but with his uncle (chacha). His cousin, Gurmukh Singh who was back then supporting Jaspreet and his ser in managing the business, has now moved to Punjab and tells us, “I’ve started my own cart in Amritsar, and I’m also focusing on my dream of cracking the exam for a government job in the railways… I left Delhi because the cart brought us money, recognition and support from the masses. But then it changed other things too. Jaspreet’s chacha took control.”    Sarojini Nagar’s Michael Jackson: My reels got me deals  Social media influencer Pankaj Rawat aka Prankster Panku started his content creation journey dancing in crowded market of Delhi such as Sarojini Nagar.. Pankaj Rawat aka Prankster Panku with 4.3M followers on Instagram was back then a Ghaziabad-based social media influencer who would dance in crowded markets, and earn fame uploading his videos on his social media. One of his reels that was shot in Sarojini Nagar market garnered 1.7M views then. “My reels got me deals! Dheere dheere public ne mujhe recognise kiya, and now I don’t get ridiculed or trolled like earlier. Log samajh gaye hain that it’s my livelihood… Earlier I’d post what I felt would work, to stay in the public eye, but now I’ve the luxury of choosing what to upload. I still dance in the markets, for fun, but now I also post a lot of other content like shopping challenges that I record with my girlfriend,” says Rawat, who has now shifted to Uttarakhand.    Corporate exec turned cabbie: Love… remains a constant Noida-based content creator Angkit Joshi had quit his corporate job to become a taxi driver, and started posting his heartfelt conversations with the passengers who booked a ride with him.(Photo: Anurag Mehra/HT) Angkit Joshi, the Noida-based cabbie with 198K Insta followers, became a sensation in September 2023 due to a video of him interacting with a passenger that got him 400K likes then. He gained popularity for leaving a high-paying corporate job to drive a cab, and recording stories of his interactions with his passengers. He says, “Up and down toh hota rehta hai social media pe, but the love I received remains a constant ever since I became viral. Now, I get paid collabs as Angkit Bhaiyya, jo Dilli mein cab chalate hain, sabke liye apne ek misaal ban gaye hain…. Just two days ago, I got a call from a girl in Gorakhpur (Uttar Pradesh) who told me that she’s calling not because she wants to book a cab but because she found me handsome and wanted to talk (smiles).”    Army wife who set up a food cart: Still not a chaiwali! Sharmishtha Ghosh went viral after being labelled as MA Chaiwali, at the time when she had set-up a cart to sell homemade food. A LinkedIn post dated January 2023 dubbed her MA Chaiwali, and till date Sharmishtha Ghosh, an Army wife, feels amused how her business got misrepresented due to social media. “I started a food joint, in Delhi Cantt’s Gopinath Bazar, but the tea was always incidental,” shares Ghosh, who then gained fame and expanded her work to run a cloud kitchen. Now based in Ranchi (Jharkhand), due to her husband’s posting, she says, “My business partner Bhavna Rao is still in Gurugram. We might start a new project later this year, and hope that social media helps us just like last time. But, without any labelling of course!”   (Inputs Alina Azfar)