3 Idiots VS Chetan Bhagat Via Social Media – So Who Won?

Who know social media sites like twitter, youtube and facebook as well as personal blogs would be used as a battleground for pulling verbal punches and posting allegations against each other. Also who knew that all this would lead to national tv coverage and print coverage running into hours and pages. But.. This is exactly what happened in the case of 3idiots vs Chetan bhagat (Some have started calling him 4th Idiot now)



Lets go over a timeline shall we?

Chetan Bhagat was obviously happy about the 3 Idiots release and he was rooting for the same. It was one of his fans who pointed out the late credit in the rolling credits to him. Check his tweets below:



As you can read from above.. Chetan is surprised by the extent to which the movie resembles the book but is giving credit to the 3 Idiots team. Then comes the point where his fans point out the lack of credit to him:



As you can see from above chetan says he is fine with the 3 idiots credit though he does mention that the placement could be better.

From here the action moves to chetan’s blog where he makes a direct allegation at the makers:

Check the post here and also read the 2000+ comments. This is the post that made the controversy viral and took it to national TV and print.

In the last 5 days chetan bhagat vs 3 Idiots was all over TV and print and we saw Aamir Khan, Raju Hirani and Vidhu Vinod Chopra talking to the press and in some cases shouting at them too. This further added fuel to the fire on social media. Check tweets here.

All in all what started as a simple twitter conversation between Chetan and his fans was now a full blown national controversy. And it has come to an end on social media as well. The 3 Idiots team have created a special video for youtube and released it via their 3Idiots youtube channel.

And in response to this Chetan has posted his final remarks on his blog.

Just to clarify this post isn’t about who is right in this controversy but more about the real power of social media and how it benefits all involved. Don’t believe me? Well here is why this was a win win controversy for all parties! (Knowing the bollywoods penchant for acting I wouldn’t be surprised if all this was planned.. Joking)

Chetan Bhagat Won! – Chetan has recently launched his new book and is working on a film script based on his earlier book 3 Mistakes of my life and this kind of publicity across TV channels certainly helps.

3 Idiots Won! – Check out this article. The controversy has apparently helped the 3 Idiots team garner more movie goers and also given them free media mindshare (Positive or negative can be debated but atleast everyone is saying that the film is great!)

Social Media Won! – Any kind of controversy like this gets new users to a medium. Both TV and Print have constantly referred to Chetan’s Blog and Twitter account and this new youtube video by 3 Idiots will also find itself on TV so in effect new users are becoming more and more aware of the power of social media.

Posted in: Bollywood News