Sharing a cinematic experience has increased drastically with the advent of Twitter and other platforms of social media. Tamil cinema and the emergence of #VanakkamTwitter has been the talk of the town with Kamal Hassan attending a summit that focused on the rise of the regional entertainment scene on twitter.
Based on the latest Twitter data, Kamal Hassan is ranked as the most talked about male celebrity in the Tamil film industry on Twitter from January-May 2018, followed by Rajinikanth, Suriya Sivakumar, Prakash Raj and Anirudh Ravichander. Also present at the summit were Baradwaj Rangan, Divyadharshini and other renowned personalities from the Tamil film fraternity. Baradwaj Rangan discussed the presence of South Indian cinema and celebrities on the platform. When in conversation with DC, the film critic said, “Films are about bringing people together and sharing ideas. We watch trailers, connect with our social circles, and then share the cinematic experience. Before the advent of social media, word of mouth was the only true method of accomplishing this — aided in part by previews and ads in periodicals. Social networks are an excellent location to build awareness and promote a film. Social media was what made it possible for the film Sanju’s trailer to garner very many views which made it to be the most awaited film this year.”
In many cases, the stated goal of hashtag activism is to increase awareness and what could be a better example than the most used hashtags on Tamil cinema that includes #Thalapathy, #Whistlepodu, #Thala, #Mersal, #Csk etc. Speaking on Twitter’s role in transforming fan interactions, Keya Madhvani Singh, Head of entertainment partnerships, Twitter, India said, “People come to Twitter to see what’s happening in the entertainment world. The Indian entertainment industry converges on Twitter to connect with those fans who want first-hand information; presenting a unique opportunity to develop meaningful relationships with a receptive audience. Through, #VanakkamTwitter, we intended to familiarise the Tamil and Telugu film industries with Twitter’s new products and best practices, thereby enabling them to reach out to fans across the globe. Going forward, we are focusing on building newer avenues and partnerships to delight fans of Tamil and Telugu films and enhance their experiences.” At #VanakkamTwitter actor and politician, Kamal Haasan said “To me Twitter is the equivalent of the walls that the Marudhu brothers used for political graffiti. It was this medium through which I expressed the anger I had. Personal and otherwise. I became a political Twitter user because of this. We are all reachable, but Tweeting makes it easy. It makes science faster and communication faster. Twitter can be used for science, politics and to exchange thoughts. It is a fantastic platform that wasn’t available to Edison and Einstein or Gandhiji, it is available to us. We can use Twitter to reach miles and miles ahead or wallow in it like a video game and not go anywhere. We need to use this momentum for the way forward.”
Playing an important role in scaling up the engagement quotient, Twitter has been partnering with various South film organisations to deliver #OnlyOnTwitter experiences like special emojis that are triggered by regional hashtags, with the most recent example being #Kaala — that has generated over 7.2 million conversations on Twitter so far. The inaugural #Vanakkam Twitter triggered online and offline conversations around the progressive outlook of South Indian entertainment, and was a huge success among speakers, partners, guests and the people on Twitter.
