Priyanka Chopra’s video: The era of fake fans

A new video showing Priyanka Chopra emerging from an airport has been called out by observant net users as being staged. The same two fans who accost her at the beginning of the video are seen running after her again for autographs at the end. Either the “fans” have nothing better to do than chase their “favourite” star at the airport. Or, shocking as it seems, these are hired fans.

The practice of inflating fan participation at public places was earlier a phenomenon restricted to politicians only. At election campaign rallies, cheering audiences were habitually hired to make the politicians look more popular than they really were. But actors following the same practice appears an exercise in redundancy as they already have a massive following.

Shatrughan Sinha, who has faced the frenzy, both an actor and politician, is surprisingly candid about “hired hysteria”. Though he refrains from commenting on the Priyanka video, he says, “Whether a film star or a politician, he or she must look larger-than- life in public. It’s all about image creation. If we see so-called fans running after a star, it does create a positive impression on the onlooker. Personally, I’ve never had to hire crowds to listen to me. I’ve always had an attentive audience, both as an actor and a politician.”

One of today’s top star-actors, recently in the news for exciting happenings in his personal life, has an over-enthusiastic PR team which has been instructed to amass ‘fan slabs’ at public events to shriek and shout when Mr Superstar shows up at the event (suitably late).

While major PR companies refused to comment on this, one prominent PR person, on condition of anonymity, confessed it is a “common practice.” “Stars, no matter how big, have to order swollen crowds for their public outings. This happens quite often during star world tours and ‘fans’ are given free tickets to fill the seats.” A young filmmaker failed to appreciate the hype around Ranveer-Deepika wedding. “I wonder if Indians all across the world actually set all their work aside on the day of the wedding and wait with baited breath for the wedding pictures. Or was it a mere perception created to hype the couple’s ‘very private’ wedding? Perhaps this is how stars have their cake and eat it too.”