Kolaveri di, cinema enters into a relationship with cyberspace?

Ridhima Mangal
In the last few weeks, a new trend has come up. In an altogether new avatar, Internet has lead to the instant popularisation of videos that went viral, all thanks to the growing dominance of dynamically active netizens!



Recently, the two videos that went viral on the Internet were: a catchy Tanglish-song sung by Dhanush ‘Why this Kolaveri di', and the flash mob at the Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminus (CST) in Mumbai, where a few hundred Mumbaikars were seen dancing in full swing to the song ‘Rang de Basanti'.

The raging success of ‘Kolaveri di’ was amazing as who could have imagined that a Tanglish song will become such a rage all over India. Some of my friends who hail from South India were laughing at seeing us North Indians going gaga over a song in their local language.

Logging on to Facebook or Twitter, all we saw were these videos being shared and likes and comments pouring in, which rather made everyone wonder what was going on, the moment you click the play button or like and share the link, no wonder every single click popularized these videos to the point that they made it to national news.

The ‘Kolaveri’ song became so popular that it is now being called the youth anthem of India.

While the flash mob at CST, a tribute to those who lost their lives on 26/11, has over 11 lakh views on YouTube, ‘Kolaveri di', a promo for Tamil hero Dhanush's upcoming film ‘3’ has been viewed over 1.5 crore times.

Apart from the gobsmacking popularity of the ‘Kolaveri’ song just by a simple upload on Youtube, it is also marked one of India’s first super successful viral marketing campaign.

What is more interesting and hilarious at the same time is that more than a dozen new versions of the song are on Youtube. There is an anti-inflation version featuring Sharad Pawar, there is a video featuring boys from Kerala using the song to appeal to Tamil Nadu Chief Minister J Jayalalithaa on the much controversial dam issue, a female version of the song is also available, there is a milk version of the song sung by Sonu Nigam’s son and many more creatively and some not to creatively rather hideously remixed by the viewers and Youtube fanatics.

It is amazing to see, not just the song appealed to the mass audience across the nation, its remixes and modifications are being used to address matters that are pan-national.

Are we witnessing a new change in cinemas relationship with cyberspace? Indeed, the answer is yes, and in India viral marketing is facing its new revolution of the sort too…such is called change of times!