The article tracks September’s viral social media moments, from Delhi’s fat dog contest and Hyrox to festival activations, brand rivalries, backlash and sports marketing.
Payal Navarkar30 Sep 2026
16:54IST
New Update
A lot happened in Delhi this month, and I watched most of it unfold on social media. Women protested for the right to breathe the night air freely, while others raised their voices against the dismissal of basic voting rights and the lack of transparency around voting. Earlier in the month, my feed was filled with videos shot on a moving metro that was seemingly unsafe. Some people said the clips were cleverly shot and were actually two videos edited together.
Amid all this, Delhi held a contest for its fat dogs. If you haven’t heard of it, think twice before you say you are up to date with pop culture. It was one of the reasons my feed wasn’t filled with rage bait, and I managed to stay sane through the political chaos.
Fat dogs of Delhi
Today is the D-Day, when the results will be announced for one of the most anticipated elections on Instagram. Which election, you ask?
One fine day, an Instagram user created a page called ‘Fat Dogs of Delhi ’ for the city’s more generously proportioned, aka ‘Chonkiest’ dogs. It asked people to nominate their favourite neighbourhood dogs. What began as a joke turned into a full-fledged election.
The page accepted the first 64 nominations, and what’s interesting are their names. There is Dahi Bhalli, named after the street food. There is Mahakutteshwar, then there are Googoo, Rambabu, and Kutta Singh, which literally means “Dog Singh“.
Voting began on 24 September through Instagram Stories. In round one, the 64 dogs were split into 32 groups, and voters picked one from each. By Tuesday, eight dogs were left in the race. While the comment section of the candidate was wholesome, supporters also made campaign posters, reels and memes and chased friends and strangers for votes.
For the grand finale today, the organisers have placed ballot boxes at three locations in Delhi, so people can vote in person as well as online.
Many of these dogs have no single owner. They live on the streets, and residents, shopkeepers and workers feed them, name them and watch their health. Two contestants died while the tournament was on.
While the contest created a collective space on the internet, it has its critics. Some users asked if it celebrates obesity in dogs, since extra weight can cause health problems and shorten a dog’s life.
Hyrox
While chonky dogs like Googoo made it as the finalists, Hyrox had a big month too. And honestly, why do people voluntarily sign up for this competition?
Since the day it was held in Delhi in July, my feed has almost convinced me to train for it and leave this planet.
For those unaware, it is a fitness race that started in Hamburg in 2017. The format is the same in every city – you run 1 km, do one station, and repeat that eight times. The stations are the SkiErg, sled push, sled pull, burpee broad jumps, rowing, farmer’s carry, sandbag lunges, and wall balls. Since the race is identical everywhere, your time can be compared with anyone in the world. That makes it easy to track your progress and easy to flex. The first event had 650 participants, while in 2023, over 40 races drew more than 90,000 athletes.
Most recently, the Mumbai edition was held at the NESCO Centre in September, and the participants included everyone you would or would not expect. Not only gym freaks, but some known faces also showed up. Ibrahim Ali Khan competed in Mumbai in partnership with Puma, while SUGAR Cosmetics co-founder Vineeta Singh participated too.
The Great Khali also walked in, and Zomato’s “Boss Level” challenge let participants take him on with watermelon crushing, thumb wrestling and high-fives.
Even ‘The Great Khali’ required a recovery massage; how could I expect to survive the challenge?
Ganesh Chaturthi
Strength challenges also appeared during Ganesh Chaturthi, only with a modak involved. India’s out-of-home market grew 13% in 2025, according to the FICCI-EY Media & Entertainment report. The offline activations segment grew 44%, partly because of large public events and religious gatherings. This year, brands added digital tools, sound, mobility and access to their festival campaigns.
Insight Cosmetics took a mobile makeup vanity to some of the popular Ganpati pandals in Mumbai, where a beauty advisor did touch-ups for people moving between pandals.
Bigbasket put a modak-shaped sound meter at Carter Road, where visitors who shouted “Ganpati Bappa Morya!” past 90 decibels got goodie bags from brands such as Wow!, Tata Coffee and Nissin. Everyone already knew the chant, so no one needed to learn anything to join.
Meanwhile, Instamart installed a 20 kg modak and asked people to hold it for 20 seconds while digital timers counted down.
Zomato, for its part, posted Gen Z-coded chants for Bappa.
Phone on the metro
While brands used public spaces for the festival with planning and permissions, the creators in my feed did not bother with either. I am talking about the phone-on-the-metro trend.
It all started when a creator stuck a phone to a metro coach window, often with a suction mount. While the train stayed idle, the creator danced or posed on the platform and ran after the train as it left. The camera seemed to follow along, and the creator faded out of the frame. The trick is that someone inside the coach holds the phone and returns it later.
BMRCL officials addressed the incidents, saying they were unaware of the individual incidents and had received no formal complaints. They added that unauthorised filming and attaching objects to the outside of moving coaches break safety rules. In Delhi, the DMRC posted an advisory on Instagram after several clips spread. It said filming such content is prohibited on Metro premises and that offenders will face action. So if you were planning to try this, please don’t.
Apple vs Samsung
Brands have their own way of grabbing attention, and this month Samsung did it in real time. Apple launched its first foldable phone, the iPhone Duo, on 9 September. Samsung has sold foldables since 2019. You can guess how that went.
Before Apple’s event began, Samsung posted, “Making us wait? Fine. We’ll be over here, folding 3 ways.” After the launch, Samsung Mobile US wrote on X, “Let us know when you’re done reheating our leftovers.” Samsung Canada posted a reel of the Galaxy Z Fold with the line, “Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery.” Duolingo also got pulled in because its mascot is named Duo. Samsung replied, “I’m so sorry, @DuoLingo. They copied us too #Solidarity.”
The two companies didn’t start as rivals, as in 2005, Samsung signed a deal to supply flash memory for the iPod nano. After the iPhone launched in 2007, it also made Apple’s processors, memory and storage. Things changed in 2010 when Samsung launched the Galaxy S, and Apple sued in April 2011 over patents and trade dress. A jury ordered Samsung to pay just over $1 billion in 2012. After appeals and a retrial that set damages at $539 million, the two settled privately in 2018. Samsung started comparative advertising while the case was still on.
The business tie never ended, as Samsung Display has supplied OLED screens for the iPhone since the iPhone X in 2017. In 2022, it supplied about 82% of the OLED screens in the iPhone 14 lineup. The roasts might be public, and the supply deal continues in private.
The Novig ad
One more campaign took over the month, and the reaction was not what the brand may have planned. Novig, a sports prediction platform, released its “Just Sports” campaign on 9 September with actress Sydney Sweeney. She is also a strategic partner and equity holder in the company. The ad shows her posing with basketball, football, tennis, baseball and hockey equipment, which covers her body in the shots.
The Australian Institute of Sport shared content on women in sport. Former Olympic skier Zali Steggall said the campaign used sexualisation to draw young men to a gambling-linked platform. Sweeney has not addressed the athletes directly. She shared images of Serena Williams, Megan Rapinoe and Sue Bird, who have posed nude or semi-nude for sports magazines. That led to another debate on whether an editorial shoot and a paid betting ad can be compared.
India has seen a similar case. Keyaa Banerji won silver at the 2026 IPF World Sub-Junior and Junior Classic Powerlifting Championships in Sun City, South Africa. She lifted 140 kg at a body weight of 45.7 kg in the junior women’s 47 kg category. After her video went viral, AI-generated videos and images made from her footage circulated on X and Instagram. She asked followers not to engage with them. She said she was sexualised online and faced remarks about her caste.
The question I keep coming back to as a marketing writer is whether backlash has become a strategy. Novig reached people who had never heard of it, and I am one of them. However, can bad publicity help build great recall or simply noise?
Asian Games 2026
The athletes in the Novig debate asked for attention on performance. At the Asian Games in Aichi-Nagoya, Japan, Indian athletes got it through results.
India has sent a 496-member contingent across 36 sports. Shooter Manu Bhaker and kabaddi player Pawan Sehrawat are the flag bearers. The country is coming off its best-ever Asian Games in Hangzhou, where it won 107 medals.
Brands are part of the Games too, but sports sponsorship has shifted. Logos on jerseys and hoardings in stadiums are still there. But brands now build longer associations around athlete development, grassroots programmes and community engagement, which continue after the event ends. Regional and national brands are also using local athletes and their stories to build lasting ties with audiences, as part of wider customer engagement plans. A set of Indian brands across nutrition, retail banking, support and broadcast categories have partnered with the Indian Olympic Association (IOA) and Team India.
On the field, India had won 10 golds by Day 11, and three came from archery on a single day.
September brought back the fear of missing out on the protests, much as it did in July. It also pushed me to take my workouts more seriously, so I may see you at the next Hyrox. Somewhere between the two, I found myself checking vote counts for a dog I have never met. Delhi will crown its chonkiest dog today, and I already know which tab will stay open.
Ganesh Chaturthiseptemberpop culture trendsnovig adseptember 2026 trendsHyroxfat dogs of delhi
