The FAKE Life of Bollywood Celebrities: Paparazzi Culture, Paid Hype, and the Dangers of Illusion
How fake can be the lives of celebrities? Things that you are shown on social media, how true are they? Paid social media trends, paid posts, paid paparazzi, paid podcasts, these are used to create a hype for films. The box office collections you are told about contain many lies and frauds.
Hello friends! Have you ever noticed that these Bollywood actors and celebrities, whenever and wherever they go, a crowd of paparazzi always follows them with their cameras in their hands? Whether they are going to the airport at 11 PM to catch a flight, or whether they leave the gym in the afternoon after a work out session. Someone or the other is always there to click their photos. If they go to a market to shop, coincidentally, the paparazzi follow them there too. And if they start travelling in an auto rickshaw instead of a car for some reason, it becomes a news headline.
It’s quite strange. I travel in Delhi metro and auto rickshaws too, but no newspaper has ever printed such a headline for me. And neither have I ever seen a paparazzi in my life. But it’s not just about me. You won’t see this happening for most YouTubers. And there are some immensely popular Bollywood actors with whom this rarely happens. What a coincidence!
On the other hand, some relatively unknown people’s faces are shown to us repeatedly by the paparazzi, on social media, and in newspapers. To the extent where this makes them famous, or it’d be better to say that they are turned famous.
Friends, in this video, let’s understand this glamorous world of celebrities, how real it is, and how fake.
The Paparazzi: From Annoying Mosquitoes to Paid Promotion
Today, the word ‘Paparazzi’ is used for those people whose job is to click photos of celebrities and high-profile people. In India, they are these people. ‘Paparazzi’ is a plural word, the singular form is ‘Paparazzo.’ And it’s quite interesting to know how it originated. In 1960, an Italian film was released called La Dolce Vita. A side character in this film was called Paparazzo. He was an annoying but fearless reporter who was ready to go to any extent to click photos of celebrities. The film’s director revealed in his autobiography the reason he chose the word ‘Paparazzo.’ Because it is an Italian slang which refers to a big, annoying mosquito. He said that this was the right word to depict the reporter’s personality.
Just like a mosquito flies around your ears, biting you and annoying you, the news reporter was like that.
In the same way, when you are web browsing, your actions are monitored by numerous online trackers. The data trail that you leave behind is used by advertisers to target you on the internet. But you can easily avoid this, simply by using a VPN.
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Now, let’s get back to the topic. In 1961, in the Time magazine, a feature article was written on paparazzi, which made the word ‘Paparazzi’ even more popular. In that article, the paparazzi were called a pack of hungry wolves.
There was a simple reason behind this. In those days, this was what the paparazzi culture was known for: secretly taking photos of celebrities without their permission, without caring for their privacy. Following celebrities everywhere to get photos. In 1997, the infamous car accident of Princess Diana, in which she passed away, the news was spread all over the world. A big reason for this was revealed to be the paparazzi. That night, the paparazzi’s cars were shamelessly following her car. In order to escape them, the driver sped up the car, and this led to the car crashing into a pillar while entering the tunnel. Due to this single incident, the world started questioning the ethical boundaries of the paparazzi.
But in India, during the 1990s, the paparazzi culture was just beginning. After the economic liberalization of 1991, along with international brands, tabloid culture came to India. Magazines like Stardust, Midday, Bombay Times, and Page 3 started becoming popular. Yogen Shah is known as India’s first paparazzo, and back when there was no internet and social media, the business model of these paparazzi was very simple.
The Evolution of Paparazzi Culture: From Candid Photos to Paid Promotions
Take candid photos of popular celebrities, that no one has seen before. And sell these photos to magazines and tabloids. People were very interested in this because, in the absence of social media, there were not many chances to get a glimpse of celebrities’ lives. The general public was curious to know: how did these celebrities live their lives? How do their homes look? What do they do in their personal time? This is why this culture became popular.
But today, after the advent of social media, the whole system has turned upside down. Now, for the paparazzi, directly taking money from celebrities to click their ‘candid’ photos has become a new model. I am not kidding, many paparazzi openly admit this.
Now, two different types of models have evolved here. One, the so-called celebrities, who want publicity, and pay paparazzi for their PR and publicity. And the second is the top A-list real celebrities who don’t need publicity. Who would never want to pay to have their photos taken, but the public would still want to see their photos, to see their private candid photos, so the paparazzi secretly click their photos.
In the second category, there are people like Shahrukh Khan, Aamir Khan, and Virat Kohli.
But the question here is, the numerous photos of celebrities you see or social media and in newspapers, how many are authentic? And how many are paid PR photos? In an interview, Manav Manglani said that this ratio is around 30:70. But in my opinion, the ratio is actually 90:10. 90% of the things you see on social media, on TV, or in newspapers, about these celebrities are paid promotions and fake acting. And only 10% are authentic.
Why am I saying this? You’ll understand this later in the video. Think about it, in a celebrity’s life, how many things that you see publicly are paid promotion PR? And how many are authentic and real?
Secondly, notice when these celebrities appear on podcasts and interviews. 90% of celebrities appear on podcasts only when their movies are about to be released. And if we talk about those social media pages that regularly post about Bollywood and celebrities, it can be quite difficult for you to identify this there. But many of the posts are often PR and paid promotion. Sometimes, you can see clear proof of this.
The Fake World of Celebrities: Paid Trends, Fake Reviews, and Corporate Bookings
For example, on the Instagram page ‘Instant Bollywood’, look at this 2-year-old post. What is its caption? “Hi, can you please use this picture and mention #DivyaKhoslaKumar? This is BTS of her recently released song #Designer.”
The caption that the celebrity asked them to write was mistakenly copy-pasted here. Although, this post was later corrected, but this should tell you that most of the posts you see on social media on such accounts are PR.
How many times have you noticed that on Thursdays and Fridays, whenever a new movie is released in the cinema halls, the hashtag of that movie is trending on Twitter? If you click on that hashtag, you will see many tweets praising that movie. Like, look at these tweets. When the movie Rocky Aur Rani Kii Prem Kahaani was released, these were the ‘reviews’ of that movie, tweeted by these accounts on Twitter. And notice how all of them use the same language, they use the same phrases. Because, the thing was that all these tweets were fake. These accounts were handled by a PR company.
This doesn’t mean that the film wasn’t good or that it was a flop. When I watched the film, I genuinely enjoyed it, and I praised it publicly on Twitter, without any payments. But there is a business of fake reviews on social media.
For example, let’s look at this in detail. One of these accounts was this one, by the name Sapna. If you click on this account and look at its tweets, you will see that this account posted many tweets. On June 4th, this account was tweeting about #TheNarrativeOnTOI, promoting The Times of India. But, just below that tweet, on June 4th, it promoted ABP News too. If you scroll down a bit, you will see #TOICountingDay. If you scroll down a bit more, they tweeted #ResultsWithdeKoder, another separate platform was promoted. Scroll down a bit more and read this PR tweet from June 1st, #MrandMrsMahiReview. This movie has been given a good review. Below this, #IDFCFirstBankBest. If you keep scrolling down, you will see every other tweet is promoting a movie or a company.
These PR accounts are often handled by PR companies. And anyone can tell by looking at these tweets that they are being paid for the promotion.
On May 25th, this account promoted voting for BJP, Congress, and Kejriwal. Look at these tweets: #DelhiWithKejriwal. There is another tweet below that, #HumaraVoteBJPKo. If you scroll down a bit more, you will reach the #SabseSolidPriyankaInterview, where Priyanka Gandhi is being praised. And the tweet just before this uses #DilliKeDilMeModi #DillitesSupportModi. So, these PR companies give their contracts to different political parties and get their work done from the same account.
I would like to tell these political parties to open their eyes. There is no point in wasting money on these things.
But if we come back to celebrities, there’s hardly anyone using these PR companies more than celebrities. The tweet with #MrandMrsMahiReview, if you click on that tweet, you will find more such tweets. You’ll see more accounts like this, including this Nishasaini32. Most likely, this profile pic used here is of a random person. If you scroll through this Twitter timeline, you’ll find the same things: one promotion after the other.
Paid social media trends, paid posts, paid paparazzi, paid podcasts. This is how the hype for films is created.
The Deception of Box Office Collections and the Fakeness of Awards
But this doesn’t stop here. Recently, a new trend has started: Corporate bookings. Corporate booking means that when the producers of a film book it to distribute it to companies or corporates. It is classified under Promotional Activities, Employee Engagement, or Client Entertainment.
But in reality, what they are doing is basically creating some hype for the film. The first couple of days after the release of a film, if they buy most of the tickets themselves, it would make it seem that every show of the film is houseful. That many people want to watch the film. This motivates other people to go and watch the film.
According to this article, a family-entertainer Bollywood film released in 2023 spent ₹200 million on corporate bookings. Apart from this, two films released at the end of 2023 spent around ₹700 million on corporate bookings. Read this with me. The shows of these films were marked houseful on Book My Show, but there was rarely anyone in the hall.
So the question arises, if this is the case with corporate bookings of films, then the box office collections that you are told about, the box office numbers of the films that are published, how true are they? And without this paid hype, what would be the real performance of the film?
This has been explained in detail in this article from News24. There’s a thing called self-booking, where individuals use their money to inflate the box office numbers of their films. But, in corporate booking, a film star works with 4-5 brands. Those companies are requested to buy the tickets and distribute the tickets among their employees, thereby increasing the box office numbers.
The hype of the film can be fake, the hype for the celebrity can be fake, the box office numbers may also be fake. And later on, when films are given awards, they are often fake too.
Look at this old clip of Shahrukh Khan. “When a person wants something, desires something a lot, they can fall to any level. They may want anything and everything, bungalows, cars, everything. I want awards. So, I was very desperate to get a Best Actor award. So I went to the editor, I told him, “Sir, I am a terrible person, you have to give me this award, and if you want, I’m ready to pay for it even.””
He is talking about how he tried to bribe an editor of an award show once so that he could get the award. “When I told him to give me the award, he said that their awards aren’t sold. If someone is good, based on the votes received from the public, the person that deserves it the most will get it.”
Bribing may not have been successful back then, but today, there are regular accusations in almost every industry of how awards are bought and sold. The credibility of these award shows has almost disappeared.
Look at this clip of Alia Bhatt. “Thank you! Okay, I’ll say thank you to Jitesh, I’ll say thank you to Filmfare, thank you to Anu. I literally told Jitesh that, when he said, “You know, you’re coming for my Glamour and Style Awards is happening on the 3rd, you have to come.” I said, “Okay, I’ll come, just give me an award.” Like, I didn’t even know which award I was getting. Okay, cut that out, but that’s the truth. Umm… Thank you for giving me this award!”
She was openly confessing about how she wouldn’t have attended the award show if she weren’t given an award.
Again, personally, I have no animosity with Alia Bhatt, but the point here is that if this is how these shows are run, what’s the credibility of these award shows? Nowadays, you must have noticed that award shows create any random category they wish to. Earlier, there were categories like Best Actor, Best Film, Best Director. And now, look at the categories in the Zee Cine Awards 2024: Hot&Techy ‘Performer of the Year’ Award. ‘Nothing to Hide Award’.
The Fakeness of Influencer Awards and the Dangers of Celebrity Culture
What are these awards? Will they keep coming up with new random categories?
But this isn’t limited to just the film industry. Influencer Awards are the same. Look at the categories in Entrepreneur India’s Influencer Awards 2024: Trendsetter of the Year, Best Newcomer of the Year, Rising Star of the Year, Young Influencer of the Year. And the categories in Cosmopolitan Blogger Awards 2024: Fashion Influencer Award, Emerging Fashion Influencer Award, Luxury Fashion Influencer Award.
It seems like new categories are being created to award everyone in some capacity. I have more than 20 million subscribers, but I have not received any influencer award till date. Do you know why? It’s not that I don’t get invitations. Often, these award companies email me that they will give me so and so award. But they always have some condition, they expect something in return. If not money, directly, they expect indirect promotion. On top of that, which awards are being bought and which are given only for publicity, no one knows for sure.
This is why it is said that, in the film industry, an actor like Aamir Khan has not attended any award function in the last 20 years.
The truth is, friends, if we come back to the Paparazzi topic, then most Bollywood celebrities and actors can easily maintain their privacy if they want to. This is why you don’t see paparazzi photos of some celebrities. On the other hand, there are some celebrities whose paparazzi photos are published every day on social media, newspapers, and TV.
The biggest example of this in Hollywood is Kim Kardashian. It is even said about her that her photos clicked by the paparazzi are edited by her personally before having them published. Look at this article, people were accusing Kim Kardashian that her latest paparazzi photos were actually edited.
Or, her sister Kylie Jenner, whose actual candid photos went viral after the COVID lockdown. But she didn’t want anyone to see the real photos, so, right after this incident, she did this fake ‘candid’ paparazzi photoshoot.
In this fake world of celebrities, there are some genuine exceptions too. Some cases where actually some celebrities are fed up with these paparazzi. Look at these paparazzi videos of Jaya Bachchan. “Who are you people? Are you from the media?”
These videos clearly show that she does not like this one bit. There was an incident with Alia Bhatt where some paparazzi took her photos while she was inside her house. There have been many such cases where celebrities’ privacy was shamelessly ignored by many people.
Virat Kohli’s this video went viral where someone took a video of his hotel room, they entered the room, and showed his belongings in the video, posting it publicly.
The Dangers of Celebrity Culture: Unrealistic Expectations and Fan Worship
Many celebrities take strict precautions to prevent such things from happening. Like Katrina Kaif and Vicky Kaushal’s wedding. Allegedly, people weren’t allowed to take photos inside the wedding venue. No paparazzi were allowed, and had a drone been spotted, it would have been shot down, so that no one could take unwarranted photos or videos.
Celebrities use several methods to protect their privacy. Hollywood celebrities like Beyoncé, Paris Hilton, and Nick Jonas use an anti-paparazzi scarf, which blocks the camera from capturing their photo. If a photo is clicked, it looks like this when someone uses this anti-paparazzi scarf.
Taylor Swift uses a decoy car to avoid paparazzi.
But this strange world of celebrities, how does it affect common people? Some people who don’t know about these things become easily fooled by this lifestyle. People form unrealistic expectations about their appearance, success, and happiness. Some people want to look like celebrities, so they undergo extensive cosmetic surgeries, they believe it to be the ideal look.
Like the case of this Iranian woman who apparently underwent numerous cosmetic procedures to look like Angelina Jolie. Although, later, she claimed that the look was fake, but, in reality, there are many people undergoing plastic surgeries because of celebrities.
Second, some people are influenced by this fake hype and fall into dangerous levels of fan worshipping. Like a fan of Kannada actor Yash set himself on fire because he couldn’t meet the actor on his birthday.
The dangers of this fake glamorous hype are now threatening the film industry. If genuine actors and genuine films are not promoted, the industry will start to lose out on people’s interest. People might be influenced by the fake hype once or twice, and go to watch unworthy films.
But if the industry is flooded by bad films repeatedly, if bad actors are promoted time and again, if we’re shown inauthentic images on social media and newspapers, people will tolerate it only for a little while. After that, people will say, enough is enough.
I have a simple lesson for you, friends. Watch films to enjoy yourself, but don’t waste your time in this fake world of celebrities. You won’t get anything from this. And, especially, don’t waste your time on shows like Bigg Boss. Why are reality TV shows so bad for you? I have explained it in detail in this video. Click here to watch it.
Thank you very much!
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