Amitabh Bachchan wanting to quit Twitter because Shah Rukh Khan has more followers is lame

Actor Amitabh Bachchan, who is so active on Twitter that he maintains a log of his tweets, could not care less, when on January 31, he noticed a sudden dip in the number of followers. He had more than 33 million fans, making him the second most followed Indian on Twitter in 2017, only after Prime Minister Narendra Modi. But the last day of the first month of this year packed “uncomfortable” data for Big B as his loss of followers apparently became Shah Rukh Khan’s gain — the latter got ahead by a few thousand followers.

Big B has always been true to his tweets. He publicly took offence when some actors did not acknowledge his birthday wishes. So, he could not hide his disappointment at this sudden loss either. Since he ruled out any chance of his fans voluntarily unfollowing him, he put the onus on Twitter for “reducing” his number of followers, and threatened to quit the platform creating much ripples among his fans.

While his hurt emotions are evident in his tweet, it is not clear whether “other fish” referred to Shah Rukh Khan.

Did he have fake followers?

According to a report of The New York Times, Twitter is believed to have undertaken a clean-up drive and it has affected “an array of entertainers, entrepreneurs, athletes and media figures, many of whom bought Twitter followers or artificial engagement from a company called Devumi”. The clean-up drive has been triggered as the company was facing criticism over the “proliferation of fake account”.

While there is no confirmation that Big B, too, falls in the category, no Indian celebrity or politician has reported any similar incident so far.

Has he lost popularity?

A day after he threatened to quit the social media platform, the number of his followers again swelled. At the time of writing this story, he had 32,902,890 followers, a little up than what it was on January 31, while SRK had 32,940,510 followers. However, the increase didn’t move the senior Bachchan as he did not tweet after his threat to leave the platform.

Speculations are rife that the threat, which was not taken seriously so far, could well be real. Meanwhile, his fan following can't be doubted given the frequency with which he tweets. He tweets on trending topics, celebrates his movies, wishes other actors, and also posts family photos, including his granddaughter Aradhya Bachchan's. Even his threat tweet received 1.6k retweets, 13k "likes" and 998 replies.

And here's how the fans reacted

Some Twitter users mourned, tried to discourage him from taking the decision with such a touch of finality. Many found it illogical to be so concerened about Twitter followers he made since 2010, while he must have earned many more real fans in his over 50 years of acting career. For some, it was a good riddance for Twitter.

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