Just as I was about to start writing this feature, a song — actually its lyrics — jumped to mind as an epiphany. The words: “We can’t rewind, we’ve gone too far/ Pictures came and broke your heart/ Put the blame on VCR.” It’s funny how the mind works.

The lines coming at the tail-end British new-wave band The Buggles’ hit song ‘Video Killed the Radio Star’, released a few years before my time on Earth began, had somehow embedded themselves in a crevice of my subconscious; its timing to surface, was karmically opportune to the subject matter that was being pondered.

In this day and age, when viewing habits have changed and attention spans have shrunk, and film and television stars have to contend against social media ‘influencers’ for fame, how does one define the word “celebrity”? And in the broader context, should they, and the word itself, even be celebrated at all?

The Buggles’ song came a year before the ’70s were replaced by the ’80s, speaking volumes about 20th-century inventions that re-calibrated artistic merit and the status quo of fame.

Even without delving into the intricacies of its imputations, the blunt of the lyrics point out that home video — the growing trend of VCRs at the time — killed radio artists, just like cinema killed theatre actors, or how television celebs replaced film actors… but isn’t that how evolution works?

Electric cars replaced horse-pulled carriages that had replaced steam-engine cars. Decades later, petrol-fuelled cars replaced electric cars and, eventually, in our near future, electric cars will replace gasoline-engine automobiles.

In an age where technology has made everything far more accessible, where stars are not just entities to be admired from a distance, and anyone can garner at least a few minutes of fame, what does it mean to call someone a celebrity?

While in the case of electric automotives, evolution seems to have come full circle, in the case of cinema, and to a lesser degree television, the world seems to be moving at the speed of the expanding universe — though not in the way one imagines. Unlike in cosmology, where celestial bodies grow dimmer the further away they are from us, here, the closer a celebrity comes to the audience, the dimmer their star gets.

It is uncanny how the parallel of the “star” label describes the relationship between celebrities and the common folk, especially when, in the past, the distance had a different meaning altogether — when the mystery of their unfathomable, untouchable lives, and the excitement of catching that rare glimpse, sparked a sense of awe. That elusivity hid their human faults, put them on a pedestal and gave credence and authority to their word.

At the risk of being labelled aboomer, one remembers a time, not too long ago, when fame was sacred. In Pakistan, it belonged to the few (though, I may add, the rest were also respected for their craft): Waheed Murad wooed us with his tragic charm, Madam Noor Jehan had her strong-pitched vocals, Anwar Maqsood’s wit sliced through generations.

These stars didn’t just act, sing or write — they defined eras. Fame was hard-earned. You had to work, sometimes for decades, to become a household name. Nothing was immediate, and rightly so, because experience breeds maturity and humility. The only “instant” in life should be two-minute noodles or fast-dissolving aspirin.

Today? Fame is a wi-fi signal away, its exclusivity ruined by the ease of technology.

With this ease and accessibility, comes a generation of undoing: one’s constant exposure on television and social media seems to have dimmed expectations and gutted the allure of the word “star-power”.

TikTok and Instagram have birthed a new breed of celebrity — one that thrives on relatability and instant gratification; both aspects familiar to the masses as well. And so, in the age of virality, fame is no longer earned; it is algorithmically assigned.

But virality is a cruel master. Today’s sensation is tomorrow’s forgotten trend. One can’t help but wonder, then: is this new fame hollow? Is it not then less about celebration, but about virality or notoriety — or, for the most part, both words working in simultaneity?

Take Hareem Shah, whose notoriety rests on audacity rather than artistry. Or TikTok stars, such as Jannat Mirza, who were cast in films for their follower counts rather than their acting chops. These “stars” might bring eyeballs to a trailer, but they rarely translate to box-office success.

The charisma required to dominate a 15-second reel isn’t the same as what’s needed to anchor a two-hour film — although, as I’ve woefully discovered, the rules seem to be a tad different for the medium of television.

Still, the barriers to ‘celebrity’ are gone, demolished by TikTok, YouTube, Facebook and Instagram. The platforms’ accessibilities and reach empower anyone with an internet ID to bloat themselves up, be they uneducated laymen and women in backwater towns, middle-aged or even older media overlords who bask in their self-promotional bashes, or even the supposed beacons-of-truth — entertainment journalists — who pander to celebrities, riding the coattails of actors and musicians and, of course, influencers.

The allure of forget-me-not self-importance is a curse of this era that is not just limited to the present generation or the one before it; it is a malady that seeps upwards even to those who don’t understand the technology itself.

A journalist colleague recently told me of an elderly chap who seemingly adheres to the garb of the religiously pious man, yet also revels in lip-syncing to songs in social media reels. If the story feels like a real-life re-enactment of Sarmad Sultan Khoosat’s deeply insightful film Zindagi Tamasha, then don’t worry, it isn’t. The fellow has hundreds of thousands in likes and followers, and there is no societal castration or retribution because, apparently, either everyone is doing what he is, or everyone has become used to it.

The question then is, do these new “celebrities” even deserve the title? Or are we just watching fleeting influencers, whose relevance is as short-lived as the trends they ride?

And, in a related thought, aren’t we (and they) mistaking this relatability for star power? Also, when their fandom reaches millions of views, and those once-familiar voices whose intention was to get noticed, amass followings — or for a large-subsection whose prerogative was to lambast and lampoon media itself — would they succumb to the greater power of traditional medias of television and then film? And do their original ideals survive when money starts talking?

A minor case in point: Arsalaan Nasser, popularly known as CBA, or Comics by Arsalan, whose channel had a fresh, sarcastic take on mainstream media — films, television commercials, dramas — and which changed its tune (actually, downright changed its entire trajectory) when he was given acting opportunities in the very medium he ridiculed.

For a good while now, his YouTube channel has been about cricket. This, however, leads to the hypothetical question: what happens if he joins cricket?

More often than not, that’s the end goal, isn’t it — to make money — but of course, we’re getting a bit ahead of ourselves here. Let’s start with the big-screen and work ourselves down to the one that’s in your hand — or if you are reading this in print or the computer, then, the device resting by your hand.

Recently, a short-film by the name of Kattar Karachi, starring Talha Anjum, half-part of the hip-hop duo Young Stunners, came and went from the cinemas in the blink of an eye; the height of its epoch and frenzy lasting a weekend.

A feature, published two weeks prior in Icon called the film a victory-lap — but then the question arises: does a victory lap merely consist of a single weekend-or-so’s success at the box-office, and does that not make the release just an event, like so many other events, akin to a special-screening, or a concert that only reaches and stops at the limits of a dedicated fanbase?

Now to clarify: this isn’t a jab at Talha’s skillset as a musician or the lack of his film’s narrative prowess (which, of course, is an entirely different matter of discussion); the point is about the power celebrities have, and whether that pull transitions out of the extent of one’s domain.

Fame is inherently fleeting, but the rapid-pulse of the day has hastened its pace and lifeline to weeks, if not days. A name that was once well-known for decades is now barely recalled for days — unless “trends” banking on nostalgia (or a bastardisation of such) picks up, reminding, remixing and lampooning the original work.

K.L. Saigal was all but forgotten by the age of Shah Rukh Khan, and Dilip Kumar will be forgotten by the end of our age. These are Indian celebrities whose images are burnt into our minds, thanks to our fascination with Bollywood. In Pakistan, we may too, in the near future, forget about Mohammad Ali and Waheed Murad. Even most film actors from three decades ago are all but forgotten; their images — save for Shaan Shahid’s — now a recalibrated fixture of television, where they have supporting actor roles.

Film, despite its financial and artistic lows, remains top-dog. The wide-eyed awe of seeing oneself on a giant screen, where people cue-up to buy tickets, remains a high, and a legit reason why actors jump at the opportunity to act in movies.

Although it bears no repetition, part of the blame of cinema’s demise lies with TV itself (the other part, about lacklustre scripts and bad storytelling, is also a byproduct of television).

Pakistani dramas are designed to cater to the lowest possible demographic. Their concepts are often designed to be formulaic, relying on tropes that actors, no matter how intelligent or literate, rarely escape: the virtuous woman wronged by society; the brooding lover with a tragic past; the conniving in-laws or malicious aunts, elder sisters or first or second wives, who forcefully wedge a giant monkey-wrench into relationships.

Where once people genuinely ate it up, now these stories stand as routine background noise that plays out of habit on television or skipped around on phones. As a middle class guy, who interacts with many middle class families, this info comes from witnessed facts. The number of hits and TRPs, therefore, do not tell you the whole truth.

Actors, then, have little choice but to accept scripts that mean little to them or, perhaps, give them enough leeway to make marginal differences in a medium of seen-it-all-before cliches.

Most actors trained in the environment of television excel at faux, throw-away monologues and long-drawn expressions and gestures, but flounder when asked to embody larger-than-life characters with the conviction and the magnetism that the big-screen warrants. And yet, filmmakers, lacking the initiative to make new stars for film, insist on casting them, hoping the TV fanbase will translate to box-office numbers. The same logic applies to internet viral sensations who are given acting jobs on television that trained actors, suffering years of grind, are rejected from.

So, what do you do, when everyone is a celebrity? You adapt, shattering the illusion of a star’s distance for de-glittered familiarity.

For the more prominent of actors, the only logical way to preserve their visage is at the cost of dimming artistic value. To maintain internet followings — as one prominent actress told me with candid sincerity — the actors have to upkeep their social media profiles, sharing informal pictures that are sometimes planned with the same meticulousness as a photoshoot for a magazine.

Since this has become a practice by one’s own self that isn’t dependent on the press-ecosystem, as it had been the case until the early 2010s, it made most actors self-conscious of slip-ups and outbursts, leading to fewer scandalous headlines — unless these headlines are calculatingly designed and self-initiated — that stir news posts.

The other way to maintain popularity is to bank on the celebrity status itself. This is when actors end-up hosting their own interview shows on YouTube or Instagram, moving away from the time-constraints and formality of television channels.

Actors interviewing actors is not a new thing — it happens as frequently in Pakistan as it does anywhere in the world today — and at times, they’re quite good; Take Faysal Quraishi’s or Ahmed Ali Butt’s interviews on their YouTube channels for instance.

But the big question remains: where stands the power of the celebrity, then? On TV, YouTube, or PR-activations in malls, where most of the crowd that gathers around the barricade of plastic fences and hired security, are already there for shopping?

Still, one cannot deny that a significant number of actors deserve the right of the celebrity moniker.

Take Ali Zafar. He’s moved between music, film, and now social media with ease. His fame doesn’t depend on the platform; it’s anchored to his talent. Or consider Sajal Aly. She’s as comfortable posting Instagram stories as she is delivering gut-punching performances on screen. Fame isn’t just a tool for them — it’s an extension of their art.

That’s not to say that everyone on social media lacks art: Irfan Junejo turned his vlogs into a form of art and Mooroo is a storyteller. These ‘influencers’ help give credence to the word, but their numbers are few; they have endured and innovated — putting in the hours to deliver something meaningful with consistency.

One may argue it doesn’t matter. Fame is fame, whether it’s built on Instagram reels or decades of dedication, but here’s why it does: celebrities are an important cog in the machine that shapes culture. They reflect our values and aspirations. Their fame isn’t just entertainment; it’s cultural currency.

Pakistan’s audiences may love a good viral moment, but their respect is reserved for substance. That’s why Ali Zafar still headlines concerts and why Abida Parveen doesn’t need an Instagram filter to shine.

Published in Dawn, ICON, February 9th, 2025