Recently, a large number of posts interrelating Mahendra Singh Drone’s captaincy and Tamil actor Thalapathy Vijay surfaced. But what is this cinema-cricket connection here?
The tweets surfaced as a result of online war between the fans of two Tamil superstars- Thalapathy Joseph Vijay and Thala Ajith Kumar. Ajith’s die-hard fans came up with memes and tweets that had Vijay and Dhoni. They made false claims that Vijay had ended his life after Dhoni passed on the Chennai Super Kings captaincy to Ravindra Jadeja and trended the hashtag ‘RIP Joseph Vijay’.
Another major reason behind the trolling Vijay was the recent release of Ajith starrer ‘Valimai’ which had the biggest opening for any Tamil film in the state. Trade analysts reports that ‘Valimai’ grossed over Rs 200 crore since its release on February 24. The action thriller police movie was directed by H Vinoth and produced by Boney Kapoor.
Additionally, Vijay’s ‘Beast’ that revolves around gold smuggling will hit the theatres on April 13. Even though both the releases have almost a month gap in between, the anticipation surrounding both ‘Valimai’ and ‘Beast’ running in cinemas at the same time fuelled the battle between the fans. Thus, on one hand Ajith’s fans trended ‘RIP Joseph Vijay’ and Vijay’s fans reverted back with a new hashtag ‘Aids Patient Ajith’.
It is not new for the fans of two actors to have such a verbal spat, however, the obscene hashtags in this spat did not suit many social media users. The rivalry between Vijay and Ajith is not new. In 2014, Ajith’s ‘Veeram’ and Vijay’s ‘Jilla’ both released simultaneously leading to a full-on verbal dispute between the two fan groups.
In 2019, a media report suggested that Vijay’s ‘Bigil’ has crossed the box office collection of Ajith’s ‘Viswasam’. It again lead to both the groups posting unpleasant messages on Twitter which topped the trend at that time.
However, the rivalry goes back till 1996 when both Vijay and Ajith were struggling actors in the industry. The same year saw simultaneous release of Vijay’s ‘Coimbator Mapla’ and Ajith’s ‘Vanmathi’. The full-force fan war began in 2001 when Ajith’s movie ‘Dheena’ and Vijay’s ‘Friends’ clashed at the box office and both ran successfully.
Therefore, from years the filmmakers have also encased the rivalry to ensure that the releases of both actors keeping clashing. They would launch the movies around the same time like Ajith’s ‘Villian’, ‘Anjaneya’, ‘Paramasivan’ and ‘Alwar’ which released at the same time as that of Vijay’s ‘Bhagavathi’, ‘Thirumalai’, ‘Aadhi’, and ‘Pokiri’.
S Shivakumar, a film writer and critic, called the social media war between two fan groups distasteful and said, “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,” according to News18.
