Twitter update! And something for us all to chew over today as I continue with my Sister Weekend (did you know Hasee To Phasee on Amazon does not have subtitles? Because ErosNOW is THE WORST????)
So, here’s the thing. Karan is constantly getting trolled for all kinds of reasons. Mostly gay bashing. And very rarely he will hit back, just wakes up one morning feeling like “enough! I’m saying something.”
I am sure it must be very frustrating for him, all these anonymous people get to make clever comments insulting him, and he can’t say anything in return because it would be punching down instead of punching up.
I am thrilled when he, very rarely, breaks free and speaks back to the gaybashing. But I am slightly more torn about him hitting back at people making clever comments on his casting of Takht and general nepotism, along with a random defense of another one of his films.
- Is it mean for him to hit back at unknown people since he is a celebrity?
- Is it ultimately shooting himself in the foot since it just gives more attention to the trolls he replies to?
- Is he really just doing this because all publicity is good publicity for his movie?
https://twitter.com/karanjohar/status/1028523382264848389
https://twitter.com/karanjohar/status/1028522484935483394
Oh, and then the last one is different from the others, not promoting an upcoming movie but just defending an older one.
https://twitter.com/karanjohar/status/1028504696422510592
In other twitter news, Shahrukh tweeted an adorable little video of the team he sponsored to go to the international children’s Cricket competition. It’s transparent publicity, both for the Meer Foundation (=SRK doing good things) and Kolkata Knight Riders who co-sponsored.
It’s also of course a very good thing to do which I am sure Shahrukh would do anyway, in fact has down countless similar charitable acts in his long career, simply because he felt it was a good thing to do. But the difference is, this time he is talking about it, branding it with the Meer Foundation and KKR.
How do we feel about that?
- Is it good that Shahrukh is finally being public about his charity so people can understand how wonderful he is?
- Is it sad that he feels the need to go public because he is so much under attack?
- Is this going to backfire because people will think it is just for publicity and not realize he has done the same thing over and over again for 25 years but not talked about it before?
dontcallitbollywood 
I think Karan should ignore and block. Why give them attention? If he is going to clap back, how about staying away from insults on people’s profile photos, which comes across as gratuitously nasty.
It’s good SRK is going public with his charity unless he’s doing it as a preemptive strike against some bad news, because that will look opportunistic. Otherwise, why not?
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Shahrukh does tend to get accused of opportunism, mostly for publicizing his next films. The last time he went public about being profiled by the TSA and pulled aside in America, he got a lot of accusations of just making a fuss for publicity for his next movie, even though he had no movie possibly coming out that it might publicize. But this seems like another safe time, his last movie was ages ago and his next one isn’t for several months, so he can hopefully avoid that. Unless he is about to announce some other big business thing.
I wish I could have found the anti-gaybashing tweets Karan has done! I think he gets a bit personal in those too, but those were really really personal comments he was replying too. Maybe he has lost his sense of twitter etiquette since he is so used to replying to personal attacks with personal attacks he forgot how to reply to professional ones with professional ones? I feel like the final tweet, the one about KANK, was the best judged. And was also responding to the most personal criticism.
On Sun, Aug 12, 2018 at 1:10 PM, dontcallitbollywood wrote:
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Yeah, the last one (about KANK) is a good reply. The other replies show a weekness concerning the subject nepotism…he maybe should try to ignore those because, honestly, his reaction to Kangana’s accusation was unprofessional and he made himself a welcome target for this kind of trolling.
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The last one was also the least aggressive towards the person. Like, I could see Karan saying the same thing to a friend at a dinner party and everyone laughing together without hurt feelings. He’s not saying they are wrong necessarily, just rephrasing it and turning it around a little.
On Mon, Aug 13, 2018 at 4:03 PM, dontcallitbollywood wrote:
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The last one reflect his wit, the others his sore spot.
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Yes, exactly. He needs to stop defending himself from nepotism claims and just own it. Say “yeah, I like working with people I like. And I own my own company outright, and I make popular successful movies, so I am not sure what business it is of the greater world if I would rather give a job to my friend’s daughter than to a stranger?”
On Mon, Aug 13, 2018 at 4:14 PM, dontcallitbollywood wrote:
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I think Shah Rukh has gone public with Meer Foundation because of what he learned at The Devi’s conference. He said there that he now sees the benefit of going public “and letting the public contribute”. His own modesty shouldn’t get in the way of helping more people, he seemed to have learned.
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that could be it. Although he has so much money, seems like he wouldn’t need any from anyone else.
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I bet, it’s not for the money (I think he mentioned that he doesn’t take donations) but for the awareness…awareness for the women who got/get attacked and awareness for that kind of Olympics for kids. And everytime the Meer Foundation is mentioned it is also his father’s name that gets mentioned. He clearly supports people to encourage them, I feel.
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Devos not Devi’s,….
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Okay, that makes more sense 🙂
Although I did like the vision of the godlike messengers singing to him that he needs to be more public in order to raise funds.
On Sun, Aug 12, 2018 at 9:06 PM, dontcallitbollywood wrote:
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First – Karan is mean. And the people he answered are not trolls in my book. They haven’t offended Karan as a person, they just wrote their opinion about his movies which are a public thing. He makes the movies for people to watch and talk about, and they are doing it. I too commented when I saw the cast of his new movie.
Karan’s answers are very poor, and he has lost another points for me.
But SRK, is great, and I’m happy he show the people how many good things he does.
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Shoot, I wish I could have found Karan’s other responses! It’s usually just to really horrible personal stuff, so I guess he’s not used to responding to just normal snark. But yeah, not really the meanest tweets. Except, again, maybe that last one on KANK. Which also had the lightest wittiest response.
SRK is always great.
On Sun, Aug 12, 2018 at 3:12 PM, dontcallitbollywood wrote:
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But again, the last tweet was nothing else but some guy’s opinion about the movie. I remember that I didn’t like what Karan wrote in his book about social media. He asked: why should I share my life with all this people who follow me? And my answer is: you don’t have to! Just close your account and done. But then how he would publicize his movies? I hate the famous people on twitter who are like: I couldn’t care less about you’all all the time, but here is my new movie/album/book/ad so go and watch it and tell me but only if you have liked it.
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A-women
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I have seen the gay bashing tweets earlier also & some were so goddamn awful. If he didn’t respond to those, no reason to do so now. Unless it was a Sunday, he was bored(possibly drunk)& mad about the marketing strategy for his new movie not creating enough buzz despite the big announcement, chosen interview, planted news articles etc & thought of taking things into his hands & also have little fun with the ‘followers’. Chill KJo! Ppl will still watch your movies & still follow up on everything you do.
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Definitely bored and random. He’s getting constantly trolled for all kinds of reasons, and then he will respond like this, two or three replies, seemingly at random every few months. Doesn’t feel like a thought out strategy, more like “It’s 3am, I’m a little drunk, and I feel like I have something super clever to say so I’m just gonna do it.”
I was googling around yesterday afternoon looking at coverage, and what I find fascinating is that every single time Karan responds like this, he gets good press! The media’s reaction is “yay Karan! Going after those trolls!” So he’s getting positive reinforcement, both in gaining tons of coverage and in people telling him he’s witty. Very strange, I would have thought they would be dinging him for the same reasons we are here, not being that clever and going after average people.
On Sun, Aug 12, 2018 at 10:44 PM, dontcallitbollywood wrote:
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These are such odd responses from KJo because they simply don’t land. They are neither clever, funny, mean, nor caustic. They are just blah. Like when an unhumorous person tries to make up a joke. I guess the clapback on KANK kinda works but is just sorta petty, but the other two are just WTH?
In general I think celebs should respond to tweets, not all tweets, but whenever they want and for whatever reason. That’s what makes it feel like access and not just marketing. As for how to respond? I think of twitter aa sort of leveler, so everyone thinks they are punching across, thus giving the impression of access. So celebs should respond in accordance with their branding, I.e. How they want to come across. The default is nice and respectful, but I’m ok with a celeb being rude if I know that’s how they normally respond to tweets, and i’d especially like to engage with a celeb who is funny, clever, or even caustic in a clever way. But KJos stupid uninteresting responses are the worst because they make him appear to be not very smart, funny, or clever.
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that “brand” part of it is maybe why he gets such good coverage for his mean tweets? Because what I am seeing is “Karan Johar hits back at the trolls” kind of thing, and then the article will start with something like “well-known for his wit, Karan Johar….” If it was someone like Juhi Chawla, people would be shocked and upset. But since it’s Karan, they encourage it, because that’s how Karan is supposed to be.
Speaking of leveling, I also found one article that pointed out the coordinated twitter campaign against Karan and ADHM. Only one article, picking up on research done by a layperson and posted on her twitter account. Because the Indian media loves to think of twitter as the voice of the people that cannot be faked. But the research on this was rock solid and obvious, the same key phrases used over and over again primarily by new twitter accounts. Twitter gives this illusion of everyone speaking equally, but in fact it is easy to game the system and no one seems to care enough to look under the surface and see it. Anyway, that was something else I was thinking of with Karan’s responses. If he is used to this obviously coordinated kind of campaign, these kinds of tweets are him changing the narrative in the only way he can.
Only, not in this case. I don’t think anyone cares enough to do a coordinated campaign against TAKHT, at least not yet. And the tweets he picked out read like real people, not faked. So maybe Karan should wait until he gets an actual campaign against him and then reply to 3 random similar tweets with the nastiest thing he can think of. This is just a waste.
On Sun, Aug 12, 2018 at 11:34 PM, dontcallitbollywood wrote:
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Imagine if PC or Kangana did something like this you guys would be outraged but since its KJ he gets a pass hypocrite much
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While I agree that the PC bashing phase was rather prolonged, it was all individual opinions rt? You can always agree, disagree, make your own observations, points etc. Not necessary that all the readers of this blog need to have a collective common opinion & absolutely no need to call names on those who don’t agree with you. We can all peacefully outrage on whom we dislike & issue passes for whom we like.
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I’m not saying you can’t dislike someone but seriously bash? and “peacefully outrage” sounds like a oxymoron
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then theres no difference between the trolls karan is replying to and the pc bashers/haters here bashing for no reason if they didnt do anything to u is essentialy trolling
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It may well be. This blog does let me peacefully outrage over KJo, Bollywood films & even over some of the popular actors without being subject to name calling or abusive comments from fellow commentators & in return I extend the same courtesy.
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I find that so ironic, and I can ” peacefully” call out someone this is her blog and she did make it public so I directly replied to her, not every comment has to agree with her like you said and no where I was being abusive, plus you can’t justify the bashing
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First Ekta Kapoor’s juvenile twitter war with pewdiepie and now KJo. Grow up people.
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and forget about the PC one on here
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This Ekta-pewsomething fight was cringeworthy. Like doesn’t this people have real problems in life?
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I wonder the same about PC trolls on this blog lol
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What on earth are you talking about? You’re the one that sounds like a troll.
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Exactly.It’s not the end of the world if people don’t like your movie or casting.
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What really bothers me is that there are real problems with twitter, which could be solved by careful responses to trolls. Like Swara did for Veere, there was a coordinated campaign including several identical tweets from fake accounts. She replied to them, and pointed out their similarities. Which was smart and a good use of her outsize twitter voice. Just getting into a war of words with a few users isn’t exactly helpful.
On Mon, Aug 13, 2018 at 9:53 AM, dontcallitbollywood wrote:
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Karan is/was mean and catty. He’s honest about it, that’s all. But ridiculing a troll’s looks is below the belt, even for Karan. She didn’t address any of his personal issues, so he should’ve done the same. And if you’re going to only cast star kids in your movies, you will get trolled. Which makes me think this is just a PR ploy.
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I was amazed at how much coverage he got. He tweets all the time and no one pays attention. But apparently if he says one mean thing, it gets reported EVERYWHERE.
So at the time I wrote this post, I wasn’t sure why he was doing it. But now, 24 hours later reading all the coverage, I think publicity seems most likely. It’s like training Dog Hazel, if he does a mean tweet by accident and everyone gives him positive reinforcement, he will keep doing it over and over again.
On Mon, Aug 13, 2018 at 1:10 PM, dontcallitbollywood wrote:
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He and Abhishek are always responding to trolls. Abhishek I find more bizarre, cos he will respond to anything people say.
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Really? I’ve never followed Abhishek, so I’ve only seen the occasional super boring thing he said that was retweeted by his father.
On Mon, Aug 13, 2018 at 1:35 PM, dontcallitbollywood wrote:
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He didn’t ridicule her looks. He made fun of her unoriginal DP. It’s a common wannabe intellectual pose – side profile staring off into the distance.
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No he said.. “nothing can match your beautiful DP, Hand on chin ..” which to me reads as him making fun of her display pic/pose.
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Well kjo brought the trolls on himself after the nepotism stunt at IIFA .ppl would have eventually forgotten about kangana and nepotism bt he launched 2 more star kids giving ppl ammunition.
And commenting abt ppls dp is strict no no.
I think both of 2 and 3 point applies to him..be is a sucjer for publicity and any thing is good for him.
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He was straight up bullying and mocking her at IIFA which was not funny nor okay, Kangana did bring up valid points about nepotism because it does exist there is no denying in that, he’s just thirsty for attention
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The same Kangana hired her sister to be her manager. I’m sure there are people who are more educated and trained for the job than having the right genes. Sorry, I have no use for Kangana who will say anything to get attention. This woman almost justified lynching people to save cows to push a right wing agenda. Her political games are keeping her alive because she’s deliberately appealing to a certain group.
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Read srk he was super bashed for his buying of vogue cover for his daughter and it b3xame a hot topic in India.
So I think he is trying to divert ppls attention from it by saying that I care for oth3r children also not only my daughter
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*became.
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Why can’t he just be honest about it instead of playing safe
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If I’m right, the kids visited him before the Vogue cover was launched…there was a photo-anouncement about some kids visiting him in Mannat.
As for the bashing…ShahRukh is constantly attacked…it was important how Suhana would deal with the extreme bashing (she will have to face it anyways later on). If she wants to work as an actress in Hindi Cinema she has to learn to focus on positivity and not being affected by that kind of negativity.
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Imho the bashing was justified .the ppl went a step ahead and commented on her face which was extreme but if you being a outsider understand the struggle ppl go thru and still launch ur kid through a magazine which is a dream for many ,you are bound to get bashed by trolls
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Trolls bash everything. Who cares? Social media has become a place to show off how mean-spirited and cool you can be. The nastier things you say, the more retweets and attention you get. People compete for attention by showing who can say the worst things and make themselves look hip.
The funny part is that most of the bashing comes from privileged people sitting in AC rooms wasting time on twitter. These same people had their educations funded by their parents and probably used connections to get their jobs. This is how almost everything in India works. The anger comes when someone is even more privileged than you. Now that’s unfair!
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I enjoyed Karan’s clap back at the KANK comment–as others have said, it was funny and gently disparaging (“uninformed person”) is pretty gentle in my book. While the other two are pointless. The comment about the DP is a needless ad hominem and punching down in multiple ways. I think any of his responses related to Tahkt are publicity, pure and simple.
So far I love everything Shah Rukh has done with/in the name of the Meer Foundation. And I’m not just saying that because I want him to hire me to help manage it.
The funniest thing about the Shah Rukh, Suhana, and Vogue thing to me is that they declared him the most beautiful man of the decade at the same time as debuting Suhana’s cover. I mean, which way was the bribery working there? Was it him saying, “Give Suhana this cover/interview and I’ll come to the event launching it to help you sell issues”, and then the award for him was just cover for why he was there? Or did he “buy” the cover for her and award for himself at the same time? It just cracks me up. Of course I happen to agree with Vogue’s assessment ;).
I get much less worked up about nepotism and people buying/leveraging personal relationships for access in entertainment than I do in, say, politics, or academics/scholarship/research, or similar fields where lives are actually at stake.
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In terms of the Vogue thing and the real life consequences, I feel kind of the same way. Except I would add the aspects of the film industry that have real world consequences. I don’t see anything particularly changing or getting worse because of Suhana’s Vogue cover, besides some model somewhere not getting to be on the cover of Vogue. But what drives me crazy is when nepotism causes bad casting of films, leading to losses for investors and loss of audience and status for the film industry as a whole. Plus ruining the actual film. And that is several steps and several years down the line for Suhana. Why jump the gun and leap to outrage when we don’t know yet if she is going to get a Athiya Shetty launch or a Vivaan Shah “hey, he’s Naseeruddin Shah’s son, I didn’t know that?” kind of launch?
On Tue, Aug 14, 2018 at 11:55 AM, dontcallitbollywood wrote:
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Good point. I don’t have a good sense of how the quality and performance of any one film affects the industry as a whole. One reason I read this blog!
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God, the nepotism thing.
Am I alone in believing that Kangana isn’t trying to be a trailblazer against nepotism in the industry, but rather calculated that Karan was an easy scapegoat in a homophobic country, already dubious of him, went on his show willingly and used the platform HE provided to score some good publicity points? In her ongoing campaign to paint herself as DIFFERENT and GOOD and BETTER and UNLIKE REST OF BOLLYWOOD?
No? It’s just me?
Okay then.
I really wish people would stop giving Karan grief about Nepotism, like he caused it, and it sprung up in Bollywood in 1998 when his first movie came out.
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YES! Every major producer has certain actors they like working with more than others, and that’s not even “nepotism”, that’s just having certain people you like working with more than others. Karan is out and proud (mostly) and it makes him an easy target.
Not to mention, I was just reminded on Emraan’s birthday that Kangana herself was a favorite of Bhatt productions for a while, as much as Sid M is for Dharma. We think of film as an industry that starts fresh with every movie, but for the people working on the films, it’s more of a continuation of a series of relationships. “Nepotism” is just a term for “I want to hire the person I worked with last time because I liked them”. Do we call it “nepotism” when a construction crew hires the same carpenter every time? No! It’s just how business works!
On Wed, Apr 22, 2020 at 11:19 AM dontcallitbollywood wrote:
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