Oh no sir, you haven't seen Imran Khan supporters then, there is nothing stopping his supporters from believing in him. Actually Idolizing has gone up even more than social media is around, one like or comment or a reply from your favorite superstar will make you dedicate their whole life to the cause of supporting their hero.
Have you seen the number of users with virat-ian or imran-ian attached to their names, you should search them up you will be surprised.
I can assure you at least 70% of those [insert_name]-ian accounts are:
1) Automated Bots
2) Paid accounts managed by PR firms.
This is done by every celebrity these days or by their managers who want to garner following for their clients so that they may get sponsors, merchandise deals etc, In case of Imran it's the objective of such accounts to provide political awareness among the masses in line with whatever manifesto they may be promoting.
Any sane person with a functioning cerebral cortex would never take such bots and paid accounts seriously and this is coming from a guy who's essentially been an Imran follower since
2002 (practically ever since I developed any capacity to follow a political discourse).
My family all voted for him back in the 2002 general elections (We voted for him again in 2013 - including me) & have been his staunch stoppers since 1996, I remember people used to laugh at my parents (late 90s) during political conversations in any gatherings whenever they brought up Imran as the 'solution, but they kept at it and only almost a decade and some years later did people finally see him as a genuine option. I am not in any way trying to glorify that decision here while our support for Imran does not even remotely mean we won't call a spade a spade and not tell it how it should be told.
Imran isn't perfect, neither he is flawless (far from it actually) but what he brings to the table is something Pakistan have never tasted before and i.e. a leader that is NOT CURROPT. I have travelled to a few places in the last half a decade or so and trust me brother, all countries that are celebrating financial stability and progressive policy development have one particular thing in common - Their leaders are as transparent as they come. Countries like Singapore, Japan, Korea, Morocco and New Zealand are what we should strive for and Imran (although maybe not particularly a Nelson Mendela in leadership) is the the need of the hour.
Coming back to the topic of those [insert_name]-ian: As I iterated above 70% of those are either bots and or paid accounts but when you come across a genuine fan or a supporter that isn't a 12 year old (intellectually) he / she will bring facts, figures and objective viewpoints to a discussion rather than contesting a like for like comparison based on 'Player X > Player Y because I say so !' narrative
A lot of times while discussing cricket related matters you might hear, people say that 'there are something which metrics cannot show!' - Anybody who uses this analogy I normally stop the conversation right there because as a man of science I FUNDAMENTALLY BELIEVE everything in this entire universe can be broken down mathematically and or otherwise in any form of numerical notation.
It is the inability of the human race to fathom that numerical notation and hence we resort to subjective crap as 'looking good' and 'has so much time' type of nonsense glorification. I am not too sure how many of you guys follow the World Series, NFL or the NBA but the stats, metrics and numerical notations those guys use and utilize in comparing athletes most certainly will put modern day 'cricket analysts' to shame.
The point of this entire 'rant', if you want to call it that
is to intellectually box on why such 'botting and paid accounts' work in the Pakistani society pertaining to any discourse. The simple answer to this query is that in our culture the general populace loves to develop uninformed opinions (refer to the human capacity Analogy I described earlier) relating to anything they have a bias for. This applies to cricket, politics, religion, foriegn policy et al and hence bots and paid accounts!
The debate now should steer from why there are people with such accounts to is it wrong for the people that are making these 'bots and paids accounts'? Morally Yes! Legally No! (Unless and until they are spreading disinformation or hate speech). These 'bots and paid accounts' are only tapping into the mindset of the populace and if that is working and driving concensus then so be it.
Among sportsmen the best PR campaign using such a targeted approach that I've personally seen is Shoaib Malik's. I don't do Facebook but I am a avid Twitter user and have been there for nearly 7 years now. In this time frame I have seen Malik going from (almost retiring due to non existent performances) to being the best batman for the country and garnering a mass social media following. How did he do that? Well I just explained above how he did what he did - It also helps that he is Mashallah performing almost every single time we need him to but all I am saying is the use of such a marketing strategy isn't alien and shouldn't be deamonized to put down the support a person has online and or otherwise. Thanks!
~ How long was your trip ? which parts of Pakistan did you visit ? how many times did you come across people playing anything for that matter?......
