Tamil Features

Posters, Mashup Videos, Twitter Milestones, Social Welfare: Here’s How Suriya’s ‘Anbaana Fans’ Celebrated His Birthday

By Aparajitha Balu
Suriya At The 'Jackpot' Audio Launch
Suriya At The 'Jackpot' Audio Launch

Twitter trends, Common Display Pictures (CDPs), mashups, tributes. This list has now become commonplace in almost every bankable star’s birthday in the Tamil film industry. To show their love and support for stars and their careers, fans go that extra mile on social media. And the best part is, it doesn’t remain just online but often also spills offline with blood donation camps, food distribution drives, and provision of essentials to struggling families.

A D V E R T I S E M E N T

With actor Suriya celebrating his 45th birthday yesterday his ‘Anbaana Fans’ could definitely not keep calm. And this was not only, but for the past 50 days, at least to my knowledge.

The tweet trend began on June 3rd, which was exactly 50 days prior to his birthday, and a few days after Jyotika‘s Ponmagal Vandhal had hit the OTT platform, Amazon Prime. While some fans had posted pictures of themselves holding printed posters mentioning #SuriyaBdayFestin50Days, tweeple took care of the hashtag and raked in 2 million tweets in less than 24 hours.

Following this trend, fans kept trending the hashtag of his next film Soorarai Pottru helmed by Sudha Kongara Prasad and kept reaching the trend lists frequently. Suriya’s hard-hitting statement for the Saathankulam Police Brutality also found support among his fans and kept them going.

On July 10, a massive announcement came from his official fan club page announcing a list of 113 celebrities from Kollywood, Tollywood, and, Mollywood who would be releasing the CDP of the actor on July 11 after 6 pm. The #SuriyaCDPCelebritiesList turned out to be phenomenal with no other star having so many technicians from the film fraternity release their CDPs. And the special celebrity from the list, the 100th, turned out to be filmmaker Gautham Menon, the one who gave that phenomenal Kaakha Kaakha.

The others in the list included almost all of the top names in the industry be it actors, directors, producers, cameramen, composers, lyricists, singers, editors, and many more. From Shivanna to Harish Kalyan, Simran to Vani Bhojan, Samuthirakani to Lokesh Kanagaraj, Parthiepan to JJ Fredrick, Thanu to SR Prabhu, Niketh Bommi to Sathyan Sooryan, Imman to Leon James, Arun Bharathi to Vivek, and Ruben to Philomin Raj, July 11 evening was indeed a fest with the hashtag #SuriyaBirthdayFestCDP and poster trending on Twitter. Suriya’s brother, actor Karthi also added that fans always manage to keep the spirits high while wishing his brother (who he said he stans) in advance.

The Common DP, intricately done, by Barani Raja had the images of a number of thatched-roof houses of a village and small dwellings on one side and, a hospital, high court, and the urbanised houses and buildings on the other with Suriya reaching out to the sky in the centre depicting his balanced concern for both ways of life. Around the actor spirals a bridge with people gradually walking on it and reaching the top of his hand. And on his palm, we find the COVID19 frontliners — soldier, nurse, policeman, construction worker, along with a businessman. The huge bold golden lettering Suriya has tinier Suriyas inked on it in black in Tamil, Telugu, Malayalam, Hindi, English, and Kannada. The date, ‘Welfare Day’, and the hashtag Stay Home Stay Safe also feature on the poster.

Suriya-CDP-birthday-celebration

The CDP trend created a record of sorts with 6.8 million tweets. Higher than even that of Ajith and Vijay’s. It is noteworthy that this is the third consecutive year where fans managed to make the star’s birthday CDP, the ‘Most Tweeted Birthday CDP Trend of the Year’ yet.

Amidst all the fervour, Rajsekar Pandian, co-producer at Suriya’s 2D Entertainment announced an update from Soorarai Pottru.

The mashups, artwork and physical posters, motion posters, tributes, and designs from fans started pouring in post the release of the CDP. Several fan clubs launched new display pictures and fans even opened new handles for the actor. They got top stars like Premgi, Sayyeshaa, and Athulya, editor Praveen KL, VJ Ajana, director KV Anand, and critic G Dhananjayan to release various mashups.

On July 16, a week before Suriya’s big day, popular streaming service Amazon Prime Video announced the arrival of his 2016 sci-fi thriller 24 on the streamer, adding to the celebrations that were underway.

On July 17, fans announced that, in a first, they would be releasing a song for the actor for his birthday on July 20 at 6 pm. The song would have singer Krish crooning and composing music with lyrics by Logan and Madhan Kumar.

For stars’ birthdays fan clubs chart out plans to make their goals achievable. They have to keep tweeting without any break for about 17 hours and create several backup handles because of the tweet limit — 1000 per day inclusive of retweets. There is even a specification on the number of hashtags they should use per tweet, the correct handles that have to be tagged, and of course, the target they have to reach. Muting off all the spam tags that would emerge on the star’s birthday is also a part of this process. And these rules are sent out like instructions to fans a week in advance.

Likewise, for the trend beginning at 6 pm on July 22, one of the main fan pages of the star put out a set of instructions on July 18.

The day also marked the 100th day since the Suriya Fan Club had begun relief work for those whose livelihood was affected by COVID19. Ever since the lockdown was announced, they have been doing their part in helping the needy.

On July 19, team Soorarai Pottru spilled the beans that a one minute video of the film’s next single — ‘Kaattu Payale’ will be releasing on the actor’s birthday as a treat for fans. With GV Prakash on music and popular singer Dhee on the vocals, fans were excited to hear this one. The ‘SooraraiPottru’, ‘KaattuPayale’, and ‘AakasamNeeHaddhuRa’ (the Telugu version of the film) hashtags naturally listed among the top trends of the day.

On July 20, after a small glimpse of the song, the full video of ‘Suriya Vaararu’ was released by Krish who said it was extremely special to him. Celebrities like Manobala, Vishnu Vishal, Venkat Prabhu,  actor and Krish’s spouse Sangitha, Premgi, Rajsekar Pandian, and several others appreciated his work which comprised visuals from his films and his contributions to Agaram and lyrics glorifying him and what he’s offered to the reel and real word. The ‘Nadippin Nayagan’ tag, which was also part of the birthday celebration tags, was introduced here.

They also announced a song ‘Anbaal Serndha Koottam’ by Suriya Fans Club Kanyakumari which would be rendered by a fan Vishnu, in the lyrics and music of another fan Kukku. The single was planned for release on July 22 at 10.30 am.

The song, a peppy one highlighting the elements of the actor that play to the gallery, released, and set the pace for the trend that was planned for the evening. The fans also announced that the official birthday tag will be announced at 6 pm, waving the flag for the massive trend that they were going to establish.

The hashtag #HappyBirthdaySuriya was announced at 6 pm and fans tweeted away to glory. Apart from this, two surprises were planned for the fans on July 23 at 12 am, a special poster to be released by cricketer Suresh Raina and the Instagram debut of Suriya. Both surprises left fans elated.

 

View this post on Instagram

 

Happy to be here and meet you all. Let’s spread love and positivity!! #Staysafe #LoveUall

A post shared by Suriya Sivakumar (@actorsuriya) on

On the star’s birthday, wishes poured in from the film fraternity, press and online media, friends, family, and most importantly fans. Several mashups, dance videos, posters, artwork, and much more flooded the timelines of Twitter. Offline fans stayed true to their Welfare Day promise on the poster and had food distributed to about 45 orphanage homes and others in need all over Tamil Nadu, Kerala, Karnataka, etc. Blood donation, planting of tree saplings, and provision of essentials and masks were also a part of the celebrations for the actor’s birthday.

Some fans had mini celebrations by cutting cakes, bursting crackers, and pouring milk and showing his posters the ‘aarthi’.

Apart from the one minute video of Soorarai Pottru‘s ‘Kaattu Payale’ song, the official announcement of his next film with Vetrimaaran was also made by Kalaipuli S Thanu‘s V Creations. Based on CS Chellapa’s eponymously named novella, the film has been titled Vaadi Vasal. The birthday trend along with the hashtags ‘Vaadi Vasal’, ‘Kaattu Payale’, and ‘Soorarai Pottru’ continued to stay on the list till midnight. Fans managed to garner more than 6.5 million tweets for the birthday tag while the other tags garnered their own significant numbers.

Read: Suriya-Vetrimaaran’s Film Officially Titled ‘Vaadi Vasal’; First Look Unveiled

Read: Forty Five, Ready To Jive: A Photo Story For Suriya’s Birthday From Our Archives

Aparajitha Balu is a Alum at Silverscreen India, and can be reached by email at aparajitha@silverscreen.in