Virat Kohli’s Retirement, Samay Raina And More: What Got India Scrolling On Instagram In 2025

If 2025 felt like a blur of new trends every time you refreshed your feed, Instagram’s Year-in-Review pretty much confirms it. The platform’s data paints a picture of a country that didn’t stick to one

dominant mood. Instead, the online vibe kept shifting, sometimes by the hour, swinging between cricket frenzy, nostalgia marathons, and oddball viral moments that somehow became cultural talking points. Here’s a closer look at what truly shaped India’s scrolling habits this year.Cricket Kept India HookedUnsurprisingly, nothing united the timeline like cricket. India’s Champions Trophy win, RCB finally breaking their streak, Virat Kohli stepping away from Test cricket, and the women’s team ruling the World Cup didn’t just spark excitement on the day they happened. These moments lived on. Reels, edits, emotional monologues, fan theories – they kept resurfacing for weeks, reminding everyone how deeply cricket continues to anchor the country’s online pulse.Nostalgia And Lo-Fi Aesthetics Made A ComebackThis year also saw a quiet shift in how people posted. Glossy edits took a back seat as lo-fi, grain-textured photos – the kind that look like they escaped an old digital camera – made a comeback. That visual shift paired beautifully with the emotional throwbacks flooding the app. Wake Up Sid scenes, Rockstar tracks, dialogues from Yeh Jawaani Hai Deewani, and countless retro fan pages floated around like comfort food for tired minds. As the world sped up, people seemed to reach for the familiar.Everyday People Unexpectedly Went ViralInstagram’s roundup wasn’t just about celebrities or influencers. Some of the biggest moments were sparked by everyday users. A girl at the Mahakumbh was instantly dubbed the Indian Mona Lisa. A little kid confidently mispronouncing “croissant” as “Prashant” had the entire country laughing. A mehendi artist from Kolhapur recreated Rihanna’s wedding look and suddenly found her work everywhere. Sudhanshu Shukla made history by becoming the first Indian in forty years to visit the ISS, inspiring a wave of posts, while comedian Samay Raina kept surfacing thanks to India’s Got Latent.ALSO READ: Sam Altman's OpenAI Brings ChatGPT 5.2 To Compete With Google Gemini 3: Features, How To Use, And MoreTrends That Burned Fast But Left A MarkThen came the fleeting moments, the ones that lasted barely a few days but still shaped the mood of the feed. Veer Pahariya’s quirky “langdi” step, the heated 90-hour workweek debate, relentless Shark Tank India clips, that Coldplay concert moment everyone reposted, elaborate fake-wedding reels, Labubus’ grand return, the turmeric-glow obsession, Parineeti Chopra’s resurfaced audio, the bizarre Vishal Mega Mart meme wave and even ultra-wide 5120×1080 reels had their time in the spotlight.