Social Media's Effect on Indian Culture
Swanica Shah
From the popular “brown parents” memes to TikTok trends, Indians have a significant involvement on social media platforms. It has empowered global users to broadcast ideas and to share content through forms of communication, creating unique online communities. I perceive it as the inevitable western influence on Indian culture. Having witnessed the development of social media for the majority of my life, the pungent traditional values alongside modernization in India have exposed me to a variety of aspects which allow me to become aware of the social media’s strong and ever-growing influence.
When I think of the countless hours I had spent scrolling through Pinterest or Instagram, drafting inspiration boards, I realize how it has impacted global trends. Music, fashion styles, and hashtags are mirrored around the world, weakening the originality of Indian culture. This realisation brought light to the darker side of connectivity; where cultural homogeneity was disguising itself as “Modernization”.
When my parents were growing up, wearing traditional clothes was a staple. Today, however, most fashion trends are inspired by the majority of influencers who are from the Western world. Traditional clothes are now a symbol of an occasion while western clothes are worn daily.
“Indowestern”, a term that dominates the Indian fashion industry, is a fusion of Western and South Asian fashion. The term can be applied to different cultural aspects such as food and art. Although it is fairly new, the meaning has been modified over recent years. From western-inspired, it has evolved into Indian-inspired. For example, social media enabled users become more aware of clothing styles around the world, allowing designers to enhance their creativity with new concepts and ideas. Consequently, Traditional styles are now considered outdated as modern generations prefer Indowestern styles, I’ll have to admit, I too, prefer the latter!
The big fat Indian weddings, another cultural staple, are popular all over the world. Did you know an Indian wedding lasts a minimum of 3 days!? They are incomplete without a plethora of different events, rituals, and customs that weave together to form an extravagant wedding ceremony. Social media has played a notable role in increasing the magnitude of the events. The elite use it to display strength, money, and taste in order to increase their popularity in society as they celebrate their newly-formed kinship. This usage of social media, however, has also caused increased competition in society, as many are pressured into overspending solely to trend on social media. In order to increase trending, furthermore, many weddings include a wedding hashtag, which is a witty phrase incorporating the couple’s names, just to flaunt the over-the-top event.
Social media has spread awareness of topics such as oppression of women, lower caste people, and LGBTQ+ communities. In metropolitan cities, for example, protests about these topics led the government to create and enforce laws in order to protect these groups and communities.
Although social media has an influence on a lot of the same topics in other countries, I feel it has managed to produce more positive change in the laws of the country, influencing the traditionalistic people of India to become more tolerant in their perceptions of others. For example, the abolition of section 377, which made same-sex couples legal. Although my family is fairly modern, in our culture there are some topics that are still deemed as slightly taboo. Social media, therefore, played a huge role in exposing me to these Western topics, helping me gain awareness of these groups of people.
While the rise of social media certainly has its many obstacles, the modernization it brings to India is beneficial to its people, raising awareness and global coverage.