My Thoughts

Let me start this post by paraphrasing what Prem Kumar said in his recent interview,

“When I wanted to make Meiazhagan, people advised me to make it in Malayalam and dub it in Tamizh to make it a success”

The above is the sad reflection of Tamizh audience as well as the content creators right now.

Hiphop Aadi in his interview said that unless Tamizh content creators on social media improve the movie industry will suffer and eventually deteriorate. This is kind of true if you look at the garbage content the people post on YouTube and social media these days. For example the only thing the Tamizh YouTube’ers are interested is their views and subscribers. To gain that they are ready to plunge to any level. The kind of dishonesty I see in our content creators is appalling. I know that there was a phase in Hindi cinema when their content creators resorted to such tactics to increase their subscriber count but again that stemmed out of anger towards their industry but that’s not what is happening in Tamizh.

The biggest issue we have is the lack of ethics from these so called critics and content creators. I am not saying everyone one is like that but the majority are that way. Most of these people are kind of waiting for a bad movie from the industry so that they can milk roasting everyone involved in the film for months but will disappear when a good films comes up. I would like to ask these so called critics who get angered when they are questioned, where are their posts when movies like Madras Matinee or Sirai or Parandhu Po releases? Where do they disappear? For example recently a Tamizh YouTuber took out an interview given by two directors whose films he disliked and created a content to make fun of them using personal attacks.

This is what these people resort to. I agree that people create content on YouTube to make money and having more views and subscribers are essential but again there needs to be some honesty in the content they post. Creating content to appease audience of a certain region seems to be the prime priority of Tamizh YouTubers. The problem though is that the fans are falling for this as well. When the audience and critics don’t praise or promote movies like Madras Matinee, Angammal, Sirai, Paranthu Po etc, they do not have the right to complain about lack of content. This also exposes the hypocrisy of these creators as they keep harping about how bad the content coming from Tamizh cinema is but when something good comes up they have nothing to say. It is as if they are sad that some good film has come and they cannot create a content to attract some trolls to get more views. Some YouTubers are still milking Dude and Coolie to increase their viewership while both those films weren’t that bad in the first place.

The biggest difference between Tamizh content creators and the other South Indian language creators is that they do not get personal about actors or technicians. Yes they criticise the films as well as the actors performances and that’s where they stop. Tamizh media channels and content creators though go an extra step to make everyone believe that it is all doom and gloom in Tamizh cinema which is actually not the case. It is only in Tamizh do we get critics roundtable at the end of the year and no one has any clue about who these people are and what their credentials are. The amount of importance we give to these so called critics is ridiculous. The Tamizh YouTube space is also a testament to the saying that negativity sells. Majority of the YouTube channels create negative content about the industry and they don’t have anything positive to report at most times. All these people somehow disappear when a good film pops up and show up with their content when a movie they consider bad releases.

They also are the masters of making a decent movie into a bad one and they take pride in the same. The audience though need to wake up and not give these so called critics and content creators more attention than they deserve. The industry needs strong voices and audience if we want to see good content coming through from our creators. If movies like Madras Matinee, Paranthu Po, 3BHK or even something like an Aaryan sink without a trace we have no right to complain about good content not being produced from our industry. Yeah it is great that we support and praise Malayalam industry through the roof but again we forget that our industry makes good films as well which needs support.

Good content overall from films as well as creators on social media is essential to improve the overall quality being watched by the audience and right now Tamizh language content on social media is falling way short. While new film makers are doing good work and even films like Aaromaley, Aan Pavam Pollathathu etc are very good, the audience and the critics aren’t lapping those up. Creating false propaganda and showing that the industry is struggling might get their view count and subscriber count up but makes their channel and content unethical.

While these channels expect our film makers to learn from Malayalam cinema, I hope they hear to their own advise as well. Being in the media and on YouTube might give them a bit of license to not follow any of the journalism ethics but again if you want to be a good content creator there needs to be some sort of honesty in the content you produce. Majority of the people in the Tamizh space neither have ethics nor have honesty, so it is hard to take anything they post seriously. This situation needs to change and it squarely depends on the audience who consume such content and to not encourage such trolls who masquerade as content creators. Good content in cinema and on Social media depend on good audience and unless that improves we will not see this situation improve.