A year-end look at the YouTube trends that helped define India’s common language

As creators experimented and audiences adopted new habits, YouTube became a surprising driver of how people communicated online. Here’s a look back at the trends that defined the year.

YouTube has grown into one of India’s most influential cultural spaces, influencing everything from entertainment habits to the way people pick up new expressions and references. Its scale and accessibility mean that what happens on the platform often slips into everyday conversation without anyone really noticing. With that in mind, this piece looks at how 2025 influenced the way Indians communicated online and how YouTube ended up at the centre of that shift.

Here are some popular, year-defining trends that caught our attention:

How India picked up a new online vocabulary

YouTube became a central platform in influencing how young Indians communicate, not through artificially created catchphrases but through the natural and repeated use of expressions encountered in the content they watch, a shift that is clearly reflected in the data point that 68% of Gen Z in India now uses language picked up directly from digital videos. This development shows how online platforms have begun influencing informal speech at scale, creating a shared vocabulary that travels across regions and communities with little resistance.

Also Read: YouTube India x SmithGeiger study views Gen Z as active builders of India’s creator-led digital space

Localisation as a growth strategy

The impact of localisation is visible in how global creators have approached India, with MrBeast being the most significant example, as he added more than 47 million subscribers from India by offering seven different audio tracks and adapting his content to be linguistically accessible to a diverse audience. This approach aligns with the viewing habits of Indian Gen Z, 77% of whom watched content or creators translated from another language, a trend that reflects a broader willingness to engage with global material as long as it feels reachable and familiar. This behaviour has influenced release strategies across the entertainment ecosystem, which is why Coolie debuted its trailer in Tamil, Kannada, Hindi, and Telugu simultaneously, and why creators such as Ashish Chanchlani released new series dubbed in five languages from the start, treating multilingual distribution as essential rather than supplementary.

Content without dialogue

Not all creators rely on language to achieve scale, and some of the most successful ones demonstrate how visual storytelling can bypass linguistic boundaries entirely. KL BRO Biju Rithvik, now followed by more than 79 million subscribers, built his audience through silent, expressive, family-oriented narratives that require no translation, while Korean creators like 김프로KIMPRO found strong traction in India through content driven mainly by visual cues and sound effects. These examples show that clarity of emotion and action can make content travel across borders as easily as translated dialogue, contributing to the evolving shared vocabulary of India’s internet culture.

Creators as interpreters of cultural moments

YouTube also became a primary space for interpreting and extending cultural events throughout 2025, with 76% of Gen Z in India using the platform to understand what was happening in the world around them. Moments such as the re-release of Sanam Teri Kasam, the drama and excitement of IPL 2025 and the Asia Cup, and the global attention around KPop Demon Huntersquickly moved into the creator ecosystem, where they were reimagined through commentary, gaming recreations, edits, fan-driven reinterpretations, and even genre-blended formats like scripted horror satire. These adaptations show how creators act as cultural mediators who transform a moment from entertainment or sport into a broader conversation.

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The rise of the creator-entrepreneur

A significant structural shift is also underway as more creators begin treating their digital presence as long-term intellectual property. Raj Shamani’s expansion of Figuring Out into a recognisable digital brand and Sejal Gaba’s use of audience trust to drive partnerships and shopping-based engagement demonstrate the growing link between content creation and entrepreneurship. This shift is supported by new AI tools like the Inspiration Tab, Edit with AI, and Auto Dubbing, which simplify production, reduce barriers to experimentation, and allow creators to reach audiences they previously could not have reached without substantial resources.

An emerging national digital lexicon

Taken together, these shifts show how 2025 pushed Indian online culture into a more connected and flexible space, where language, format, and geography matter less than they once did, and where audiences move comfortably between global ideas and local interpretations. The trends point to a year in which creators experimented widely, viewers embraced content in new forms, and the boundaries that once influenced digital consumption became easier to cross. As 2026 approaches, it is clear that this mix of these things will continue to influence how people discover, discuss, and share what interests them. 

What are your thoughts on these trends? Tell us in the comments below. 

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