The other day, speaking at an OG event, Pawan Kalyan appealed for an end to "fan wars". He mentioned the names of other Tollywood superstars like Prabhas and Jr NTR, suggesting that he likes their work.
In the past, at a film event where he shared the dais with Jr NTR, Mahesh Babu, too, asked the fans of all heroes to shun fan wars. He didn't explicitly mention the term "fan wars", but the message was essentially that. Did fan wars stop after the appeal? Mahesh Babu's fans continue to body-shame other heroes. The fans of all big stars are guilty of abusing "rival" heroes. As we write, Pawan Kalyan's fans must be abusing other heroes online over OG records.
Fan wars have taken newer forms in recent years. Online anonymity is one of the main reasons for this. This is not all. Trolling is mostly organized and orchestrated. Fan groups have WhatsApp groups where they strategically plan what arguments to be made against other actors, what should be propagated to buttress the credentials of their favourites, so on and so forth.
One-off appeals on the dais won't work. The stars themselves have to step in and probably dismantle fan groups that don't abide. But this would be hara-kiri for them, as fan groups offer free-of-cost PR. Who in his senses would want to remove them? Even if the stars genuinely want the wars to end, they are in a fix.
