Mirroring The Industry: How the ‘Fake’ and ‘Inorganic’ culture has taken over the Hindi Film Industry

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As a lifestyle expert with over two decades of experience in the entertainment industry, I’ve witnessed the evolution of social media and its impact on the film industry firsthand. In the past, it was a tool for genuine connection between filmmakers and audiences, but now it seems to have morphed into an intricate web of manipulation and deception.

Initially in 2015, as social media was on the rise, the Hindi Film Industry viewed it as a means to engage with their fans. But today, ten years later, social media serves primarily as a tool for shaping public opinion about movies. The interactive dialogue with cinema-goers has largely faded, replaced by the practice of planting comments from social media users to influence perception. Essentially, digital platforms have been transformed into a method for manipulating audience perceptions.

Let’s trace our discussion back to the source – insecurities. Websites such as YouTube, IMDB, and Book My Show can provide insights into public interest towards a particular movie. However, regrettably, the film industry has discovered methods to distort these platforms using ‘BOTS’, leading to fabricated views and rigged votes. In the past decade, the number of views and audience interest on these sites once offered a glimpse into real-world trends, but nowadays, it’s common for these figures to be manipulated by bots, skewing the entire social media discourse about movies.

As a dedicated fan, I can’t help but notice that while the hard numbers and metrics are crucial, the battle for perception rages on in the digital realm, particularly on social media platforms such as X, Instagram, and Facebook. Clever digital agencies have devised innovative strategies to propagate favorable content throughout the virtual world. They start by sponsoring posts through influencers, followed by artfully orchestrating a stream of positive comments beneath these influencer’s posts. This is achieved by strategically planting comments using bots and accounts associated with their paid campaigns.

Although these online metrics may appear favorable, they don’t necessarily translate into increased audience attendance at the movie theater. The interest is often artificially generated through fake votes and comments, with minimal genuine conversation typically occurring. It isn’t until the end of the release week that producers realize their efforts in ‘Online Reputation Management’ have essentially squandered a significant portion of their budget without any tangible return.

To give an illustration, suppose a producer chooses not to engage in Online Reputation Management – what might transpire? When a lion tastes blood, it yearns for more. Similarly, when producers adopt an ‘Anti-Paid Campaign Stance’, they often face a flurry of negative publicity from the same digital agencies and influencers. This can manifest in various ways, such as unfavorable comments, posts on platforms like Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook, all working together to tarnish the film’s image in the digital sphere. If the movie is indeed poor, this negativity will likely have an impact; but if the movie is good, these negative efforts serve only to expose any paid negativity that may be present.

If producers decline to work with these agencies when they propose Online Reputation Management services, those agencies could resort to damaging the producers’ online presence instead – what I call an “online attack mode.” The world of film is often shady, and unethical practices are rampant due to corruption in the industry. This has led some to exploit this grey area by engaging in negative campaigns that extend beyond social media. They might manipulate votes and reviews on platforms like BMS, IMDb, YouTube, Instagram, Facebook, and more, through spamming or planting unfavorable comments. Essentially, they leverage their connections and power to create a harmful bubble around the producers’ work.

In the beginning of the year, a fighter encountered a situation when producers opted for an organic strategy in their campaign. Agencies handling social media who initially faced dismissal, subsequently took action to remove the movie after the weekend, which was perceived as unnatural. Over the past three years, there have been numerous instances similar to this, with the fighter being just one of many. Fortunately, the film managed to gain traction and achieved a notable milestone of 200 crores in India, earning it the label of success.

Beyond merely deceiving perception, there’s also an influential tracking agency involved (an industry secret, apparently), that has allegedly fallen into corrupt practices. They’ve been entering into media network deals with film producers to artificially inflate their prediction numbers – yes, you read it correctly, some producers are trying to manipulate box office predictions themselves! This is done to foster a favorable “industry buzz” and “industry conversation” about the opening day. While this agency claims to be earning money through research, those in the know are chuckling at the reality faced by many producers and actors.

Modern marketing agencies are now employing various types of non-traditional influencers to promote their messages in an organic way – this includes political journalists, social media influencers, sports personalities, southern region influencers, fashion icons, and even meme accounts outside the entertainment industry. These individuals are used to create a misleading narrative bubble. Although the author acknowledges that it’s up to both content producers and consumers to decide whether to promote positivity through paid media and influencers, the problem arises when feature films are penalized for not participating in media partnership deals.

Regarding the concept of a “perception game” in movies, it appears straightforward: if many people claim the same thing about a film, it’s often viewed as truth. Yet, one must wonder if this perception translates into ticket sales at the box office? Our guess is not necessarily. What are your thoughts on this matter?

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2024-10-16 11:10