I was surprised to see the mail from Twitter yesterday.
Thalaivar is now on Twitter. 348k Followers already. Pretty impressive.
Screenshot of mail from Twitter.
Jokes or no jokes, Twitter India literally followed Rajinikanth when he finally joined the microblogging site on 5th May, announcing the opening of his verified account by welcoming the ‘superstar’ with a big promotional top band on every account. And it was not as if Rajini, or whoever was operating his account, thought it was any less momentous – the very modest handle is @Superstarrajini. As word of his grand entry spread, everyone, including actual fans, the ‘we can’t miss out on what’s happening’ update addicts and silent tweeple, all clicked the ‘follow’ button, leading to over 10,000 followers before the first tweet! The first actual tweet, “Salutation to the Lord. Vanakkam anaivarukkum !! A big thank you to all my fans. Excited on this digital journey,” came in around 4pm, a few hours later.
The big debut had been in the news for a few days and a special video had also been released, in which the actor had announced his Twitter arrival. In official statements, he said, “I decided to start with Twitter because I felt that the platform is abuzz with all the news and the trends that happen across the globe… and I’m told that this is where all the best Rajini one-liners are.”
That the social media debut was a promotional move for his next film became clear when these enthusiastic followers were flooded with automated messages sent by the account, with links to Kochadaiiyaan posters and more. This was, however, corrected in the second half of the day, by when many fan girls and boys were already a little weary of it.
However, ‘Thalaiva’ (Rajini’s fan moniker) and ‘welcome to Twitter’ were trending in different parts of the country, and Rajini fans made sure that not just Twitter, but every other social media platform was also flooded with the ‘Twitter joins Rajinikanth’ joke by evening. What followed were many other tweets by other, less reverent tweeple trying to figure out the reason behind the hype.
How could anything to do with Rajnikanth not lead to his jokes.
Here are some jokes that followed;
90k- no. of twitter follower Rajinikanth has right now! 5 million- no. of people who have made the “twitter has joined Rajinikanth” joke! – @MadCrazyHatter
How Rajinikanth’s account was handled by an agency yday is a good case study on how twitter accounts should not be handled. Utter fail. – @saffrontrail
Rajnikanth has joined Twitter and 1010241 people have cracked the ‘Twitter has joined Rajnikanth’ joke – @AksharPathak