Bollywood star Ananya Panday has started So Positive Initiative to stop social media bullying
On World Social Media Day, Bollywood star and daughter of actor Chunky Panday, Ananya Panday took the ‘digital social responsibility’ of ending cyber bullying through social media. The DSR initiative, called So Positive, is an attempt to spread awareness about the effects of social media bullying.
Ananya shared the news with her followers through a video, in which, she spoke about her own experiences and struggles with social-media bullying, and urged people to stop spreading hatred in the social media world.
“A part of growing up is taking responsibility and as a woke millennial I, Ananya Panday introduce you all to my Digital Social Responsibility initiative 'So+’,” she said in the video.
She aims to create a positive atmosphere on social media and expects the same from others.
"Our generation is prone to insensitive remarks. I wonder why civil conduct followed in real life is not followed on social media... Why make social media a dumping ground of so much hate. Why be so negative? Why not just be positive?" she said.
This initiative is a product of the social media bullying faced by Ananya herself in recent times. After her Bollywood debut in Karan Johar’s Student of the Year 2 in 2019, Ananya faced a lot of criticism, mostly for being a star kid.
She opened up about her struggle in the video as well. She shared that she was called a product of nepotism with no brains, a liar, too tall, too thin, living on father’s money, talentless, a fashion disaster, etc. She said it badly affected her mental health.
A few months ago, Ananya was also accused of faking her admission at the University of Southern California (USC). However, she handled the situation with perfect grace as she shared her admission certificates and other documents on her social media pages.
When she shared the same on her social media handles, she expressed how sad these accusations made her, and that she had to do this to prove the bullies wrong! She also explained how badly these rumors affected her mother, father and little sister. Followed by these rumors was the release of her SOTY 2, which again invited a lot of bullying on social media for her.
People posted, commented and posted terrible reviews of Ananya, more out of jealousy or entertainment which possibly hit her hard. Thus, she started this initiative on 30th June, which is celebrated as World Social Media day.
A lot of Bollywood celebrities, such as Karan Johar, Varun Dhawan, Dia Mirza, Anurag Kashyap and Siddhant Chaturvedi praised her initiative, and also joined her fight against cyber bullying.
Social media star, Mallika Dua posted, “a digital social responsibility initiative to combat social media bullying. Much Bloody. Needed. Good on you@ananyapanday.”
Karan Johar shared, “Say no to cyber bullying! Say yes to positivity.”
Anurag Kashyap wrote on his Twitter handle, “Congratulations @ananyapandayy for launching @SoPositiveDSR to create awareness against cyber bullying.”
Aparshakti Khurana shared, “Kudos to Ananya Panday for taking this initiative. Someone had to take this up against cyber bullying and make life positive.”
Many others, including Farah Khan Kunder, Athiya Shetty, Shweta Bacchan, Kiara Advani, and Ishan Khatter, showed their support for the initiative on social media.
Ananya Panday will next be seen in Pati Patni aur Who, which also stars Kartik Aryan and Bhumi Pednekar in lead roles. The film is the remake of the 70s classic of the same name.
