If your social media feed lately looks like a chaotic montage of sobbing college students, boys tearing their shirts and IV drips in movie theatres — don’t worry, you’re not losing it. You’re just witnessing the Saiyaara effect.
Released on July 18, Saiyaara, starring debutants Ahaan Panday and Aneet Padda, is a storm that has swept into theatres and apparently everyone’s tear ducts. Directed by Mohit Suri, known for tragic love sagas, the film is being hailed (and howled) as this generation’s ‘Aashiqui’. Gen Z, once wooed away by K-dramas and international franchises, seems to have found their way back to Bollywood and boy, are they making an entrance.
Silent promotional strategy
Unlike typical big-banner Bollywood debuts that throw the actors into every podcast, influencer reel and brand tie-up under the sun, ‘Saiyaara’ went stealth mode. No saturation interviews. No red carpet blitz. No “woke hot takes” to go viral (and backfire). Just a trailer, a soulful album release a week before and a couple of quiet interviews from director Mohit Suri. The stars themselves were nowhere to be seen. And that might have been their best move yet.
Instead of giving audiences promo fatigue, Saiyaara arrived as a clean slate. One that the audience could paint with their own heartbreak, nostalgia and Instagram filters. What followed was a wave of audience reactions.
Is ‘Saiyaara’ really that emotional?
From girls fainting due to “emotional overload” to a boy watching the film with an actual IV drip in his arm, the hysteria is real…or at least looks real. Videos show packed theatres echoing with sobs, heartbreak-induced screams and even spontaneous couple dance routines mid-screening. A clip of one boy twirling his girlfriend as end credits rolls onscreen is now a certified meme.
But here’s the big question – Is ‘Saiyaara’ really that emotional? Or is it just a PR masterclass disguised as a cultural phenomenon?
While the emotional outbreak videos sure pulled massive crowds for the movie, the flurry of edits on Instagram eventually felt like a PR campaign.
The same social media is also filled with users who have claimed that the outbreak is not real. Redditors have claimed that it wasn’t your usual paid promo. It was more strategic. Instead of flooding big, obvious Bollywood gossip accounts or some clickbaity pages, the team might have taken a smarter route of paying or partnering with smaller niche editors. The kind of accounts that genuinely shape the visual taste of their followers.
This subtle tactic worked. “Genz as an audience are very judgy and early to label something as [wannabe]. But if their fav edit account that actually curated their consumption taste is a making and edit of this scene how could it be [wannabe]. This move was a game changer honestly,” a Reddit post claimed.
A LinkedIn user named Jeet Thakur also claimed that the makers of ‘Saiyaara’ pulled off an innovative PR campaign. “Apparently they quietly paid small amounts to lower-income youth to show up in theatres and create buzz. The most over the top cheering, clapping, recording themselves loving the film,” he posted.
“Completely bizarre but it worked. What it very cleverly avoided is usual Nepo kid backlash. We’re now seeing innovation in PR. And it’s everywhere…PR works! But only in getting early traction,” Thakur further explained.
Impressive box office collection
Besides all the chatter, the film’s box office collection is impressive. It has completed its first week at the box office with a remarkable Rs 172.71 crore in domestic collections.
Generating buzz across the entire country, Saiyaara has already broken several 2025 records, including one of the highest-grossing first weekends of the year. Trade analyst Taran Adarsh took to X and posted, “300 CR? 400 CR? OR MORE? – ‘SAIYAARA’ IS ON A RECORD-SMASHING SPREE… #Saiyaara is rewriting the rules of the game… At this stage, no one can confidently predict where its lifetime total will land.”
Film trade analyst Komal Nahta dubbed Saiyaara as a “modern-day Dilwale Dulhania Le Jayenge (DDLJ)” for Yash Raj Films. “What’s interesting is how deeply it has resonated with audiences in tier 2 and tier 3 cities, something we haven’t seen in at least 15 years, and certainly not after the pandemic,” he said.
So, is Bollywood back from its GenZ slump or are we all just part of the best PR stunt in recent times? Only time — and maybe Ahaan Panday’s next role — will tell.