Superstars Like Shah Rukh Khan Need Not Fear Social Media Creators, Says Vijay Subramaniam: ‘A Tech Wave Can’t Wash Them Away’

Vijay Subramaniam: Jannat Zubair is 23 years old. The former child star has primarily worked in fiction TV and films over the last seven years, with notable exceptions in music videos and reality TV. Yet, she is a social media superstar, with more than 50 million followers, surpassing all three Khans and several A-list female stars. The emergence of such social media Gen Z stars has led many to wonder if they will soon replace film superstars at the top of India's pop culture pyramid.

Vijay Subramanian disagrees. The founder of Collective Artists Network, which manages many of the country's top creators, says this social media wave cannot sweep away superstardom. In a chat with Hindustan Times, Vijay discusses the distinction between old media and new, the need for creators to reinvent themselves, and why superstars need not worry.

Can digital content pose a threat to cinema?

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Ask him if cinema and the film world are under threat from a new style of storytelling led by the creators, and Vijay agrees. "I'm a big propagator that old media, as it was, is probably on its final legs. A few more years from now, there'll be a complete transition to media, which is predominantly digitally native. The moment I saw that trend kind of come in, I knew that every part of the business that we operate in is going to become extremely critical to operating from a place where we are ready for that economy."

Vijay says that for the longest time, stardom in the country was limited to film actors and cricketers. Digital creators are now wading in those waters, too. "There were two broad pillars of iconicity and stardom in the country. It used to be the movies and cricket. And I think that's kind of shifted to now there being three, the third being the digital content. You have to be ready for it."

Superstars cannot be replaced

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However, Vijay argues that more creators becoming popular does not mean that they will replace or supplant existing superstars. "I think that's a bit of a myth," he says of that notion, adding, "Superstardom is superstardom. I don't think they're interchangeable or overlappable. I don't think Shah Rukh (Khan) ever competed with Sachin (Tendulkar). They stood for their own thing. Or I don't think Ranbir (Kapoor) and Virat (Kohli) are competing against each other. I think similarly, you know, there's this constant battle of 'is social social media stardom going to eat into the classic celebrity culture'? The answer is no!"

Vijay says that social media stars are simply expanding stardom, making it accessible to more people now. "I think you're a social media star today because you have a slightly more loyal fan base, but superstars are superstars. Their superstardom has been built over decades, not over months or years; it is not topical. So, I don't think it's going to be cannibalistic. They've built their stardom over 15, 20, 30 years. A technology wave is not going to wash them away."

What creators need to remember, Vijay says, is the need to reinvent and not stagnate, something Bollywood superstars have been doing for ages. "I think the problem with the creator economy that was there and that we are looking to solve is that today, creators are very ephemeral. They last for a span of 1 or 2 years," he says, adding that creators need to ask themselves: "How do you keep reintroducing yourself? How do you keep disrupting?"

Vijay says the future is about disrupting the current manner of creating and consuming content. He explains, "I feel micro dramas are going to come in. Fast fiction is going to become a reality, and AI-led content is going to become more and more prevalent."

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