A few days ago, an overwhelming number of posts linking Mahendra Singh Dhoni’s captaincy with Tamil superstar Thalapathy Vijay went viral on social media. But what’s the cinema-cricket connection here, you would wonder?
The tweets were the result of an online war between fans of Tamil cinema’s two biggest superstars– Thalapathy Joseph Vijay and Thala Ajith Kumar. Die-hard fans of southern star Ajith created memes and tweets featuring Vijay and Dhoni, falsely claiming the actor had ended his life after Dhoni passed on the captaincy of the Chennai Super Kings (CSK) to Ravindra Jadeja, thereby trending the hashtag ‘RIP Joseph Vijay’.
Additionally, Ajith Kumar-starrer Valimai recently registered one of the biggest openings for any Tamil film in the state which was also one of the reasons behind the actor’s fans trolling Thalapathy Vijay’s admirers on Twitter. According to trade analysts, Valimai, which hit the theatres on February 24, has grossed over Rs 200 crores since its release. Produced by Boney Kapoor and directed by H Vinoth, the movie is an action-thriller about a police officer who goes after an outlawed biker gang.
Moreover, Vijay’s Beast, a movie that revolves around gold smuggling, is all set for an April 13 release. Though there’s almost a month gap between the release of the two movies, the fact that both Valimai and Beast will be running simultaneously in cinemas soon has created a new battleground for the two warring teams. To counter the trend ‘RIP Joseph Vijay’, Vijay’s fans flooded Twitter with the hashtag ‘Aids Patient Ajith’.
Even though this sort of verbal spat is not new between the two fan groups, the obscene hashtags did not go down well with many social media users. The rivalry between fans of both actors is not new. In 2014, when Ajith’s ‘Veeram’ clashed with Vijay’s ‘Jilla’ at the box office, fans from both camps launched a full-scale verbal attack on each other.
Once again in 2019 when media reports suggested that Vijay’s movie Bigil had surpassed the box office collection of Ajith’s Viswasam, both camps began posting unpleasant messages against each other which topped the trend on Twitter at the time.
The rivalry between Ajith fans and Vijay fans dates back to 1996 when both actors were struggling to make a mark on the big screen. That year Vijay’s movie ‘Coimbatore Mapla’ launched along with Ajith’s ‘Vanmathi’. However, a full-fledged fan war ensued in 2001 when Ajith’s movie ‘Dheena’ and Vijay’s ‘Friends’ clashed in the box office and ran successfully as well.
Over the years, the movie producers have also encashed in on the fan rivalry to ensure their box office kept clinking. The movies of both stars would be launched around the same time like Ajith’s Villain, Anjaneya, Paramasivan, and Aalwar hit the screen at the same time as Vijay’s Bhagavathi, Thirumalai, Aadhi, and Pokiri, giving their die-hard fans ammunition to target each other.
Film writer and critic S Shivakumar called the social media war between the two fandoms “absolutely distasteful”. “Both Vjay and Ajith are so cordial with each other. They are not enemies, but competitors. The element of competition has been there, like between MGR and Sivaji Ganesan or Rajinikanth and Kamal Haasan. But the fans are the ones who have taken this to a low level. Earlier they used to fight outside the theatres where the movies were being screened, now they have got a platform to vent their frustration which is being misused. The sad part is not the pathetic Twitter battles but both the stars not admonishing their fans,” Shivakumar told News18.
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