Zeitgeist 2022 — Part 2
2023 is just 3 days away and we cannot wait for the weekend vibes of the new year to set in. As the celebratory weekend draws in, let’s look into the continuation of the rewind of 2022 that was started a couple of days ago with a part 2 of this zeitgeist. 2022 has been filled with roller coasters ranging from some big acquisitions to history defining moments and some high key departures in terms of personnel.
Let’s closely look at this final part of 2022 to capture the best and the worst of this year.
Political
Brazil takes a left turn: Brazil turned leftist by voting Lula Da Silva into power as the new president of Brazil. This was a turn of events for Lula Da Silva who had previously served in prison owing to wrongful conviction by the judiciary. The election results established the trend of leftist governments rising back to power in South America and could spell a signal for upcoming elections across Europe as well.
Impact: Highly positive for people of Brazil as Lula Da Silva is a leader of the common people. It also bodes well for the world as the most liked president will only inspire the world leaders to take cue from his functioning to make the world happy in such doomsday timings.
The Rise of Rishi: One would have never imagined that a person of Asian origin would be ruling United Kingdom one day. Rishi Sunak proved detractors wrong by becoming the prime minister and rightful resident of 10 Downing Street. While he comes with a background of heavy financial backing and driving U-turns in the government, this was a monumental moment in the history of United Kingdom and the world where a person whose ancestors did not belong to UK rose to such a high rank in politics in UK.
Impact: Difficult to comment on impact as UK is going through high inflation and the world is not really paying attention to UK’s stance on any topics. It will all boil down to the policies Rishi Sunak implements for UK and the foreign policy that he brings about in his tenure.
Same old Saffron story in India: Back in India, the saffron domination continued with BJP grabbing Gujarat, Goa, Uttarakhand, and Uttar Pradesh establishing the saffron rule in 17 states. This displays the dominant position BJP enjoys in India and indicates that 2024 Lok Sabha elections could be a foregone conclusion already. While AAP did spring a surprise in Punjab and Congress won back Himachal Pradesh, but Saffron remains the flavor of India.
Impact: Partially Positive. The BJP domination could slowly lead to a dictator-based rule with heavy focus on Hindutva. While development of the downtrodden is visible, not everyone is happy with such domination amongst the public and there is a strong need of a meaningful opposition.
Business
Layoffs with some moonlighting: The Russia Ukraine war and financial crisis has covered majority of the business newsfeed throughout the year. The real impact in business was visible on the employees specifically as there were massive layoffs in tech giants and startups owing to cash constraints. The employees didn’t do themselves any favor as well by being involved in the concept of moonlighting to make more money and this enforced even more layoffs.
Impact: Negative as it has indicated that even the biggest companies are not a safe place to work, and stability of job has become more important than making big and quick bucks.
The Ups and Downs of Tata: Tata had a mixed bag this year by having a failed launch of Tata Neu (India’s first super app), but it redeemed itself by acquiring Air India and is now on the cusp of transforming it to again becoming India’s darling in the sky. 2023 will be exciting as Tata Neu looks to revive itself and Air India looks to establish itself again on Indian and international skies.
Impact: Partially positive as Air India’s acquisition led to nostalgic moments with Tata being the original owner of Air India as well. Only time will tell on the promise it continues to keep.
Sports
The Super Max domination: The 2021 Formula 1 season ended controversially, but Max Verstappen dispensed all that controversy by dominating the entire season in 2022 and becoming a double world champion. In that process, he notched up the highest wins and highest number of points in a season by a F1 driver. This was an indication of the start of a new era with Lewis Hamilton nearing his age to call it a day.
Impact: Very positive as it breeds a new set of champions who could come to dominate F1 after the glorious years of Sebastian Vettel and Lewis Hamilton.
Rafa creates history and a GOAT departs: 2 years back, mentioning Rafael Nadal as a history maker in Tennis apart from French Open would have called out laughing stocks. With his true determination, Rafael Nadal ended up becoming the holder of maximum of grand slams in his career and writing his name in the history books by winning the Australian Open and French Open and ending 2022 with 22 grand slams. In parallel universe, the original GOAT, Roger Federer called it quits on his tennis professional career starting the end of a glorious era where tennis captured the imagination of sports fans.
Impact: Highly Positive as it drove a message of never to lose hope and bring wonderful memories of yesteryears back.
Technology
Broadcom handshakes with VMware: Something which did not capture a lot of eyeballs, but Broadcom entered a deal to acquire VMware. Broadcom is one of the biggest semiconductor and hardware manufacturing company and VMware is synonymous with cloud computing. The $61 billion deal (which will be formally finalized in 2023) was a hidden gem which will ultimately dictate how the hardware boards drive cohesiveness with cloud computing.
Impact: Positive as it will drive synergies between hardware and cloud computing to enable easy virtualization of x86 architecture. This will go on to reduce manufacturing cost and service costs as well impacting businesses directly.
Wordle’s world: The first half of 2022 was all about posting wordle scores. This word-based game (it’s not even an app) kept everyone on their toes post-midnight to guess the word and compete with the peers and the world. It was indeed Wordle’s world, but it couldn’t pick up on the craze it had spread across the globe.
Impact: Highly positive as it pushed the intellectual limits of the human mind and that is aways beneficial.
Entertainment
The ‘K’ phenomena: Korean pop culture was already a craze, but 2022 saw Korean culture scale new heights with amazing collaborations with Netflix as well. People across the world were obsessed with not only BTS and K Pop, but people were spending a lot of time watching Korean drama with weekly global viewership accounting for an average of 17–18% of total viewership.
Impact: Highly positive as people got exposed to a new culture and it also acts as a signal for other cultures to expose themselves to the world.
The Maverick is back while Bollywood turns artsy: The world was deprived of cult films like Mission Impossible or 007 series. 2022 saw Top Gun Maverick creating wide cheers for Tom Cruise (“The Maverick”) and grossing over $700 million domestically in US. At the same time, Bollywood turned into a content-based industry as movies with good content ruled the roost over the movies with high entertainment factor.
Impact: Mixed bag as movies like Top Gun will not come regularly while the Indian audience still strives for the entertainment filled movies which can allow people to leave a part of their brain back at home.
Finally, as we say goodbye to 2022, there are some departures which are worth mentioning as a legacy is being left behind with their departure.
The Queen Departs: Queen Elizabeth II departed for heavenly abode leaving behind decades of legacy she created for United Kingdom and the world.
Abe-San and his legacy erases: Japan was often identified by Shinzo Abe owing to his persona and free willing nature with world leaders. He was the vital architect of security in Asia pacific region and will always be idolised by the world and Japan. His assassination caused huge uproar as he was bidding for another term as the Prime minister of Japan.
While the legends depart, we look forward to aa 2023 where new legends will be born, and new history will be made across all domains. Cheers to 2022 and bring it on 2023!!!
