Bollywood Twitterati !

Please bear with the all text no pictures blog ! It was an assignment (1000 words ), I chose Twitter as my subject !!

Here goes...

Gone are the days of getting to know of a movie being made on Lehren or waiting for Magazine interviews of stars or waiting to read weekly newsletters about Bollywood ! Science & Technology have progressed and that too at an unimaginable speed ! 10 years back having access to all the information worldwide at your fingertips would have seemed a distant dream !! And yet here we are, from Occasional Lehren telecast to daily dose of Bollywood news on Zoom, from Filmfare magazines to Filmfare twitter and online accounts, from weekly newsletters to Bollywood news supplements everyday !

One of the most addictive and finest mediums of this Internet boom is Social Networking!

Its strange you may not know your neighbors name, but would know fans of your Fav celebs from across the globe, its even more strange that wife and husband sitting next to each other Like, Comment and Write on each other “Walls” on Social Networking sites rather than saying it personally ! Well hate it or Love it, you simply cannot stay away from it !

One such popular Social Networking platform is Twitter! It has garnered lot of popularity in recent times because it not only has us,common people as users, it also hosts noted Celebrities & Personalities! Twitter does not ask us for a lot of personal information ( Thank God ! ), it is very easy to use and most importantly has a limit of 140 characters per tweet! Yes we are a busy generation :) , and it’s also a good way to tell a lot of people (who really need to) to keep it short and to the point ;) 

How can Bollywood stay far, its bitten by the twitter bug ( or pecked by the twitter bird ??!! ) & most of the Bollywood Personalities are now on Twitter, at least the blue tick next to their username says so! Or at least lets hope it is them,our very own Celebs who tweet from their verified twitter accounts and not their staff !

So how has Bollywood presence on twitter made a difference? Well, these days we get to hear of most of the movie Announcements directly from the horse’s mouth, fans can have a direct one to one connection with their fav celebs and ask THEIR choice of questions, Movies are kept in the news through official fan pages and timely updates.

And then there are Celebs who put their thoughts or current frame of mind on public platform, they endorse each other’s work and also at times interact with each other keeping their humour intact ;)

A lot of Producers and Directors take to twitter to formally announce a movie of which we keep hearing rumours from media’s “reliable sources” ;) Come to think of it a lot of articles about movies are incomplete these days without a related Bollywood personality’s tweet embedded into it, Twitter indeed is one of the great sources of information for the Entertainment Media ! It is also a great medium for publicity especially when a trailer or a song is being launched from an upcoming movie, it is very cleverly used to create a buzz about the same by using “#hashtags” and creating Trends which makes more and more users aware!

Well yes eventually it’s a Business and being on Twitter helps these personalities promote their movies and events, however being a fan myself what is absolutely thrilling is that Celebs interact with their fans one on one ! Celebrities do take time out to chat with their fans!! Imagine there was a time where you could send fan mail and wouldn’t know where it vanished!! Now we have a medium where we are certain that our message has reached our favourite stars and if you are lucky enough you get to hear back from them as well :) Twitter is definitely a good platform to increase or at least retain your fan base, cause let’s face it the more you are out there and seem accessible, the more people like you and appreciate you !!

Twitter is also used effectively by Bollywood celebs to clarify and justify any nasty false rumours about them. It is so quick and authentic that it does send out the message pretty loud and clear ! We have had quite a few instances lately like Anushka Sharma speaking about her lip enhancement or Bipasha Basu explaining why she did not promote “Humshakals” ! We know its them speaking directly and their words are not being minced !

It is also a medium where Bollywood “Stars” get first-hand feedback about them, whether its their acting, dancing, interviews or attitude in general ! And of course in extreme situations we see “Trolls” taking their case, they wait for one small mistake and grab the opportunity and utilize it to the fullest ! Somehow people ( trolls rather ) have lot of free time and come up with innovative and creative Internet Meme’s of the Celebs. Most celebrities ignore these or take it sportingly, while some like Alia Bhatt go a step ahead and make videos like “Genius of the year” a sporting response to the backlash she received for not being able to name the President of India !

Mister Amitabh Bachchan uses twitter quite regularly & religiously, he also keeps a track on the tweet numbers by adding “T- [Tweet number]" before every tweet, shows his organized & structured lifestyle ! Shah Rukh Khan’s tweets are deep, perceptual and witty, just like him ! Most of the younger generation of actors are on Twitter, they are pretty interactive and have even come to a stage where they recognise few of their fans through twitter !

Twitter has definitely helped fans get closer to the Celebs and bridged the gap which existed otherwise ! So lets enjoy the twitter phase till something BIGGER & BETTER comes up ! 

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