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Journalism of Courage
It’s hard to imagine our present-day lives without internet and social media. While in today’s new-age era, it’s Facebook, Twitter and Instagram that dominate our mind space, at least a decade ago, Indians were hooked to another platform – Orkut. Yes, the virtual platform that millenials would know best, where people made and discovered friends long before Facebook became the status quo. Recently, Indians on Twitter went down the memory lane over the weekend remembering their first social networking experience on Orkut and are sharing everything they loved about it. And soon #Orkut started dominating trends on the micro-blogging site and netizens started sharing jokes and memes to capture the nostalgia.
It all started when one Twitter user Shubhangi Chopra (@shonupie) asked on the micro-blogging platform, “Who all used Orkut here?” Sharing how she discovered the website, thanks to an account opened by her sister, many others commented on the thread saying what features they liked on the platform owned by Google and how its closure in 2014 left them sad.
Many started commenting on the post and got the attention of several old Orkut users sharing familiar stories. From remembering going to an internet cafe to check it out to it’s ‘testimonial’ feature, here’s what got desi Tweeple talking online, along with a few memes to capture the trend.
https://twitter.com/vedvyazz/status/1279281572970029056
https://twitter.com/et_iustus/status/1279371271390756864
https://twitter.com/Nyishi2/status/1279377449139109894
https://twitter.com/TheSwatFlick/status/1279400624329601025
Named after its creator Orkut Büyükkökten, a Turkish engineer working with Google at the time, the platform was launched in 2004 but gained widespread popularity in 2007-08, particularly in Brazil and India. In September 30, 2014, the website announced it is shutting down and users could download their profile archive through Google Takeout. Although its creator later launched a similar platform called Hello, it never got the same love and users in India.
