INDIAN MATCHMAKING? Nah, Indian MEME-making!

Hi, I am Sima Taparia from Mumbai!

What are your preferences, beta?

If this question got you making a *list*,well then congratulations, you have binge-watched one of the most ‘I don’t know why I binge-watched’ show on Netflix!

Yes, we are talking about the recently launched show on Netflix India called “Indian Matchmaking”.

This is a documentary setup which talks about…Indian matchmaking (no guesses here, I guess).

That’s right, the show revolves around Sima Aunty, who claims herself to be a ‘top matchmaker from Mumbai’.

It involves ‘clients’ from all across the globe, who are looking for an eligible partner to marry — through a matchmaker. (yep, not Tinder or Bumble folks!)

Through the show, the makers tried to throw light on this custom called ‘matchmaking’ and aptly called it ‘Indian’ matchmaking in order to get away with extreme caste-ism, class discrimination, stereotypical thinking, racial discrimination and so on and on and on.

Well, to be fair, the show received a mixed review. Some praised it for gracefully throwing light on these stereotypical notions about marriage in the Indian culture, some took the show as a source of instilling these utterly useless stereotypical thinking processes into the society.

Talk about mixed reviews!

While the debate continued over the show’s ultimate aim, Indian Matchmaking went on to enjoy viewership from a huge number of millennials, who did not want to miss out on the ‘meme convo’ happening online!

While some netizens were amazed at Sima aunty’s ways of matchmaking, others were astonished by the strange appearance of life coaches, babas, jyotishis and face-readers into a matchmaking process!

In the show, Sima Taparia would visit her clients’ home and judge their standard of living.

Then, she would go on to ask the preferences of the client for a life partner and make a *list*.

The lists ranged from reasonable asks such as a friendly person to literally useless asks like they should know about the salt flats of Bolivia (I can imagine Aparna doing an eye-roll rn).

One major meme source for netizens was one client called, Akshay and his mom, Preeti.

Akshay is a supremely rich and extremely shy person who relies on his mother for everything. EVERYTHING.

Preeti seems to have more preferences for Akshay’s wife than Akshay himself.

Memes soon surfaced about the ‘terror’ of Akshay’s mom!

Indian Matchmaking took over the internet within a day of releasing, and the reason behind it gaining so much popularity is crystal clear — MEMES.

OOO, this is below the belt!

Sima aunty dropping truth bombs.

Thank you Preeti for all these memes. We love you.

When several content creators and brands started to incorporate Sima Aunty in their conversations, people started feeling a need to watch the show in order to catch up with what was doing the rounds online.

And hence, ladies and gentlemen, we all ended up watching Indian Matchmaking when we could have very easily re-watched F. R. I. E. N. D. S.

This is what memes do. They engage with the audience on a personal level, making them curious about wanting to learn more, making them want to engage with online content.

Don’t believe us? Try it out yourself.

Learn more about meme marketing and give your brand a meme-makeover with Youngun India.