Fandom is a cult. It doesn't matter if you’re selling overpriced software or pop melodies; the mechanism is the same. You build a brand, you cultivate a digital army, and then you watch as that army tears apart anyone who dares to suggest your latest output is anything less than divine. Usually, the "creator" sits back, lets the blood spill, and enjoys the bump in engagement metrics.
But then something weird happened in the churn of the Indian entertainment feed. Amaal Mallik, a guy usually occupied with the high-stakes world of commercial film scores, actually decided to put the leash on his own dogs. He apologized to Baseer Ali. He told his fans to stand down. And Kunickaa Sadanand—a woman who has survived more industry nonsense than most of us have had hot dinners—noticed. She didn't just notice; she applauded.
"Taking responsibility for your fans," she called it. It sounds like a basic human requirement. In the current internet economy, it’s practically a revolutionary act.
Let’s look at the friction here. In the attention economy, conflict is currency. If Mallik’s fans are dragging Ali through the digital mud, the algorithm sees "activity." It sees "relevance." It sees a reason to keep pushing Mallik’s profile to the top of the "Explore" page. To stop that—to actually step into the comments and say "enough"—is to actively sabotage your own growth hacking. It’s leaving money on the table. It’s choosing peace over a trending hashtag.
Most celebrities treat their fanbases like private militias. They claim they can’t control them. "Oh, my fans are just passionate," they say, while their followers send death threats to a journalist who gave a movie a two-star review. It’s a convenient lie. They love the heat; they just don't want to get blamed for the fire. Mallik broke the script. He looked at the mess his "armies" were making and decided he didn't want his name attached to the stench.
Kunickaa Sadanand’s public nod to this isn't just veteran-to-junior politeness. It’s a critique of the status quo. Sadanand comes from an era where "reputation" was something you built through work and conduct, not through a bot-assisted swarm of teenagers with too much time on their hands. By highlighting Mallik’s move, she’s pointing out the massive, gaping hole in how we navigate digital influence.
The trade-off for Mallik is obvious. You lose the "edge." You lose that frantic, cultish energy that keeps a brand hyper-relevant. When you tell your fans to be civil, you’re basically telling them to be boring. And boring doesn't sell tickets. Boring doesn't get 10 million views in twenty-four hours. We’ve built a system where the most toxic behavior is the most rewarded, and Mallik just opted out of the bonus check.
It’s messy. It’s localized. It’s a spat between a music composer and a reality TV star that, in the grand scheme of the heat death of the universe, matters very little. But as a case study in digital leadership, it’s fascinating. We’re constantly told that "platforms" need to do more to stop online harassment. We beg for better AI moderation. We scream at the billionaires in Menlo Park to fix the vibes.
Maybe the answer isn't a better algorithm. Maybe the answer is just having the spine to tell your own fans to shut up when they’re being assholes.
Mallik did the unthinkable: he took the hit to his own ego to stop a pile-on. He didn't use a PR-scrubbed statement written by a 22-year-old intern. He just owned the behavior of the monster he helped create. Sadanand saw the rarity in that. She saw a guy willing to trade a few thousand likes for a shred of dignity.
We talk a lot about "community management" in tech circles. Usually, that’s just code for "how do we keep the rubes spending money without them burning the building down." Mallik’s version of community management was a blunt instrument. It was an admission that his brand isn't more important than the person on the receiving end of his fans' vitriol.
It’s a nice moment. A clean moment. But don't expect it to become a trend. There’s too much profit in the chaos, and most people in Mallik’s position would rather have the clout than the conscience.
How many other stars are willing to tell their "armies" to go home when the fight gets too ugly, knowing it might be the last time they trend for a month?