Hamza Ali Abbasi is no stranger to courting controversy, creating headlines and also delivering box-office smashes. Over the years, the star turned religious activist seems to have perfected the art of staying in the news. Sometimes it has been due to his comments and opinions on current political affairs while other times, it has been due to developments in his personal life. 2019 was no different for him, especially the latter part of the year when the news cycle pertaining to him seemed to go in the overdrive!
Darling of the news cycle
This past August, the Parwaaz Hai Junoon star announced marriage to fellow actress Naimal Khawar of Verna and Anaa fame. This development caught his fandom completely by surprise as it was totally out of the blue. And then later, during October, he posted a cryptic tweet saying that he had an important announcement to make at the end of the month. Interestingly, his long-awaited drama serial Alif also went on air on Geo TV around the same time.
The bombshell tweet
After a sabbatical of almost a month from social media, he reappeared in mid-November to drop the big bombshell in a rambling 23-minute long video that he would be quitting acting and using the digital medium to spread the word of God. He further revealed that one of the reasons why he chose to do Alif was because of the spiritual nature of its script.
Hamza did not say that he would be leaving showbiz completely, as he still would be making films and dramas to spread the message of Islam and God. Interestingly, his co-star Humayun Saeed revealed in an interview that Hamza also plans to direct a patriotic film that he will be producing. It should be noted here that Hamza has already starred in two patriotic-themed movies, Waar and Parwaaz Hai Junoon.
The big change
November 14th marked the day Hamza formally started his YouTube channel. To date, its subscribers stand at 51.9K. While amassing more than 50K subscribers in over a month is a great achievement for an average YouTuber launching his or her channel, Hamza already has followership in the several millions on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram, therefore this kind of response can at best be described as lukewarm. Underscoring the need to amass more subscribers, Hamza has been periodically reposting links to his YouTube channel and asking his fans to subscribe to it, however, in the last few weeks the subscribers have stagnated at below 52K. The only video he has posted so far has received about 197,000 views which frankly doesn’t do justice to a celebrity of his stature.
Time to put YouTube to some good use! Here is the link to my channel… https://t.co/UY2JDvsWXt… Will be uploading videos frequently.
— Hamza Ali Abbasi (@iamhamzaabbasi) November 15, 2019
The initial response given his popularity not just as a showbiz personality but also a social media phenomenon was expected to be stronger and then Hamza hasn’t uploaded anything new either since the initial attention-grabbing announcement. His digital channel is lying dormant, for now.
Now given the lackadaisical response to his new stint, Hamza seems to have returned to Twitter with a vengeance. The Jawani Phir Nahi Ani actor has recently been pretty active on the platform, commenting on the Musharraf verdict, the controversial Citizenship Amendment Act in India and the Junaid Hafeez blasphemy case. It seems there was ample material for a YouTube video here, however, Hamza still chose to address his fans via his Twitter account rather than going the video monologue route.
Speaking of which, his followership on Twitter seems to have plateaued at around the 2.4 million mark too, and he has not really attracted more audience to his account since his announcement about quitting acting. Statistics on Instagram and Facebook don’t paint a much different picture either.
Next, let’s talk about Alif. Given its mega-cast, a religious theme and the fact that it is, according to Hamza, his last appearance on the small screen, the serial was expected to score massive numbers. While the Haseeb Hassan directed venture has been scoring decent ratings and online views, the numbers aren’t exactly the kind that suggest that the play is the rage it was expected to be. Rather, it is playing third or fourth fiddle to Meray Paas Tum Ho and Ehd-e-Wafa, scoring about 3 million YouTube views for each of its recent episodes.
Final word
All of this brings us to the question on everyone’s lips – has Hamza’s fandom and the wider audience given a thumbs down to his new YouTube televangelist gig? While it’s still early days, and it very well could be that the star has more content in the pipeline, it seems to some observers that the audience has not reciprocated in the manner Hamza had been expecting. A clearer picture is likely to emerge in the coming few months, and we will be there to tell you like it is, and as it happens.
Tell us about your views about Hamza’s brand new avatar in the comments below, and stay tuned to Galaxy Lollywood!
