Diwali 2019 was celebrated online with the world’s leading short-video platform

Many celebrities turned to TikTok Diwali stickers instead of real crackers, using the platform to spread the annual ‘don’t burst crackers’ message. Genelia and Ritesh Deshmukh, Jacqueline Fernandez, Ravi Dubey and Sargun Mehta, Neha Kakkar, Virender Sehwag, Kapil Sharma, and Armaan Malik were some of them.

TikTok is for both iOS and Android, created by a Chinese developer to share short lip-sync videos of 3 to 15 seconds and looping videos of 3 to 60 seconds. It started a hashtag saying “May the divine lights of Diwali bring to your life peace and prosperity. Wish you all a very Happy Diwali! Let’s be environment-friendly. You can also share Diwali Blessing cards to your loved ones. Let’s celebrate Diwali together on Tiktok using #tiktokdiwali.”

While Bollywood remained predominant in the charts of top trends, many tracks were from independent artists. They were mainly Hindi and Punjabi songs in the top 10 trends, including songs from Tollywood and Bhollywood with some old remixes to spice up the Top 30 mix.

Hari Nair, the Head of Digital Music, TikTok India said that music is an integral part of TikTok. “It is heartening to see how our music discovery platform has empowered newer independent artists to showcase their talent globally. It provides a platform for emerging artists to gain exposure and break through a wide and varied audience.” TikTok was the first Chinese app to become the most downloaded app in the US in October 2018. Tiktok hit one billion downloads globally in February 2019.

TikTok faced a short ban in India earlier this year (April 2019) when the app was deleted off from both Appstore and Google Play for “encouraging pornography”. The company removed over 6 million videos, costing the app 15 million new users.

Here are the top 10 Songs that were trending on TikTok during this Festive Season

• Happy Diwali
• Ik Mulaqaat
• 8 Parche
• Pachtaoge
• Lehanga
• Bijli ki Taar
• Dil Mera Blast
• Wah Wai Wahh
• Teri Ban Jaungi Reprise Tulsi Kumar Version
• Saki Saki

8 Parche, Pachtaoge, Lehanga, Bijli Ki Taar, Dil Mera Blast, and Wah Wai Wahh are all by independent artists that gained widespread popularity too. Regional songs also went viral including Bhojpuri song 4G Ka Jamana, Tamil and Telugu songs Othaiyadi Pathayila, Verithanam, Muddabanthi, and Hoyna Hoyna and the Malayalam song Kudukku.