It was an abrupt unfollow session that has had the whole of Bollywood on notice. He’s let go of SRK, Ananya and Manish, yet keeps Priyanka in his circle. You can tell by the way fans are refreshing their feeds and making up for it in the comments: they want to know why the cull happened and what makes Priyanka the one holdover from his list of Indian stars.
When you have 17.5 million eyes on you, even a small change is noticed. Some of us were on to it by Thursday when we saw his following numbers budge. One minute it was 78, then 74. It doesn’t look like he just hit a button once; it seems like a bit of housekeeping is in order.
The unfollow move fans are debating
Then there is the matter of Shah Rukh Khan not being on the list anymore. And it’s not just him – the rest of the Khans, Gauri, Aryan, Suhana, are all off too. But you scroll down and there’s Priyanka. The internet, as it does, was on to it in a flash, complete with its share of side-eye and memes.
A few other faces you’d expect to be there are absent, like Ananya and old friend Manish. For the most part, they are still following him back, which makes the whole thing seem a bit lopsided. No word from Karan or any of the others on the subject, so we’re left to our own devices.
Here is what everyone is making of it:
– He has moved on from Shah Rukh, Ananya, Kartik Aaryan and Manish.
– You won’t find him following Kareena, Malaika, Varun, Sidharth or Alia.
– The Khans (Gauri, Aryan, Suhana) are not followed either.
– With the exception of Priyanka Chopra Jonas, that is.
– As for Ananya, Katrina, Vicky and Sara, they are still on his side of the screen.
A tilt to the global and the fashionable
With some of the local colour gone, his feed is looking a lot more cosmopolitan. David Beckham, Justin Timberlake, Chris Hemsworth and Ellen are front and centre, and you have Channing Tatum, Dwayne and Mandy Moore in the mix as well.
He’s also got a taste for the finer things in fashion – Sabyasachi, FARFETCH, R13, MANE. His media picks are a give-away: BuzzFeed, GQ, People, the Times. And with Zach King and Daily Dropout in the running, he’s clearly after a younger demographic.
Yuvraj Singh is the only one from the sporting world to make it. There’s Ahmed Mansur from Dubai too. Put it all together and it’s a very put-together, worldly profile, not one that is fixated on the tinsel town scene.
Why some in Bollywood are left cold
There is a sense of timing to it. His last film, Chand Mera Dil, has been a hard sell, with a net of Rs 19.09 crore in its first week and reviews to match. Then you have Naagzilla coming up with Kartik Aaryan in the lead, and the fact that Karan isn’t following him hasn’t been lost on anyone.
We’ve seen this before. Back in 2020 he did a mass exorcism of his Twitter, whittling it down to 8, from Bachchan to the PM. He’s not on there these days, anyway.
What to expect
Maybe he’s just in the mood to reorganise, or maybe this is how he wants to be online from now on. The ebb and flow of his follow count says it’s a work in progress. We’ll have to wait for him to put us out of our misery before we can stop guessing.
Until then, the story is what it is: SRK is out, Priyanka is in. The rest of the industry will be keeping an eye on his profile, and so will we, with every little refresh.
