Star wars get hotter on the virtual world

For the last few days, hot debates about the popularity scale have been going on in the fan pages of the superstars in the Malayalam film industry as well as that of relatively new actors, some of whom have more likes than that of the superstars. So, does the number of likes in one’s page correlate to acting prowess? As the fans engage in a war online — some don’t even hesitate to use abusive language at the slightest provocation —we explore the phenomenon.
Young men form the bulk of users
The trigger for the recent outrage was that actress Nazriya Nazim raked up more likes than that of superstars following the release of the bilingual rom-com Neram.But netizens say, there is nothing surprising about the fact that a pretty young actress, whose movies have been hits, is getting more attention on social networking sites than senior actors, since young men use these sites most. “Why would I want to see pictures of Mohanlal in different poses regularly on my newsfeed? I prefer a pretty young woman. And youngsters like me and college students form the bulk of net users,” says Chethan C, a netizen. According to Chethan, women too use these sites, but they prefer to stay silent, without liking/commenting. “It is not to do with the number of users of either sex but on the number of ‘active’ users,” he says.
Likes = popularity?
Fans of superstars, on the other hand, claim that the fanbase of their favourite actors is also youngsters. “An age-wise division of the fans on Mohanlal’s page will reveal that the majority of them fall in the 18-24 category,” says Sajeev, an ardent Mohanlal fan. According to Sajeev, an actress who is active in more than one industry will naturally get more likes. “When you act in several languages, the number of your audience will also go up. Kajal Aggarwal, for example, has more than 30 lakh likes on her page.” He also feels that although actresses receive more hype when their careers are at its peak, their career spans are always short. “Mohanlal was popular before social networking sites came into being, and the number of likes doesn’t really make a difference to him,” he says.
Pay your way to be popular
Apparently, likes on social networking sites are not hard to get, if one is prepared to shell out enough. And certain fans of the actors have accused others of ‘buying’ likes. “Buying likes for your youtube videos or even your social networking page is nothing new in the US. Software for the same is available in India too,” says Rakesh Ramachandran, who runs an online portal. However, it is difficult to detect whether the likes on a page are real or bought, he says. “The only means is to compare the number of likes to the ‘number of people talking’ or the number of comments. They should correspond. A sudden and abnormal rise in the number of likes followed by a dip also signifies that something is not right.”
Meanwhile, debates continue on the pages, even as one commentator notes — ‘It is neither the superstars nor the young stars who are creating the unnecessary and unhealthy rivalry, it is the fans of both who carry things to the extreme.’