'Should I stop?': Vijay Deverakonda breaks silence on 'manufactured hate' at Ranabaali event

Actor Vijay Deverakonda has addressed the online negativity that has followed him throughout his career, describing it as "manufactured hate" driven by coordinated groups rather than genuine audience sentiment.

'Should I stop?'

At the trailer launch of Ranabaali, Vijay Deverakonda addressed the fundamental question that every public figure who faces sustained online hostility has to answer: does the hate justify changing who you are? He said, "These are my dreams. This is my effort. Everything I have built has come from years of work. If some people look at all of that and decide it is a waste, should I stop? If my honesty comes across as arrogance to them, should I start putting on a performance off screen as well? If my confidence is mistaken as my pride, should I shy away from my personality? If my journey makes certain people uncomfortable or jealous, should I just sit at home and do nothing? I don't think so."

The actor added, "People should change, not me. They should change for their families. They should change for their personal lives. It is genuinely inspiring when you see someone grow and evolve as a person. But if, despite all of that, they continue to talk behind my back, continue to run campaigns against my work, what exactly am I supposed to do about it?"

Vijay Deverakonda's remarks appear to be a response to the criticism he has faced since the success of Arjun Reddy. His outspoken nature, confidence during interviews and refusal to conform to the expectations placed on Telugu film stars have often been seen as arrogance. Deverakonda has heard the accusation for seven years. His answer, on this occasion, was to refuse the premise entirely.

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Vijay Deverakonda then made a distinction. He said what he faces is all "manufactured."

"I cannot call this hate. What I see is manufactured. A small group of people, each operating 20 to 50 accounts, sharing the same content repeatedly. If you scroll through your feed and see 50 reels back to back, all saying the same thing, that you should watch Jailer 2 instead of Ranabaali, do you really think 50 different people independently arrived at the same opinion and made the same reel? That is not organic. That is manufactured."

He further added, "Every actor faces this. Politicians face this. It is not unique to me. But the people doing this should understand one thing: six months from now, they will be replaced. AI bots will do the same job they are doing, faster and cheaper. They are already becoming irrelevant. They just don't know it yet."

Vijay Deverakonda said the realisation about "manufactured hate" did not come immediately. It took him the better part of a decade in the industry to understand how the system works. "It took me seven years to understand how this works. When I came into the industry, I came in thinking I love acting, this is what I want to do with my life. I was genuinely surprised by what I found here. The last one year is when it finally became clear to me. What I was taking personally for all these years, what I thought was genuine audience dislike, is manufactured. It is a system. Once you see it as a system, you stop taking it personally. But it took me seven years to get there."

The timeline he describes, from his debut in Pelli Choopulu to the present, covers a period in which he went from being the most celebrated newcomer in Telugu cinema to one of its most polarising figures. The backlash began after the massive success of Arjun Reddy, intensified after Liger flopped, and has continued through every project since.