Virat Kohli's Instagram Account Or New York's Times Square? The Silent 'Outrage' By Fans Explained

Virat Kohli's Instagram Account Or New York's Times Square? The Silent 'Outrage' By Fans Explained

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News18.com

Last Updated: March 15, 2025, 12:29 IST

Virat Kohli, one of the finest cricketers of our generation, is a face for countless brands. His Instagram account is overbearingly stuffed with promoted brand deals and fans demand a break.

Virat Kohli's Instagram with 270 million followers is a world of its own - mostly with brand deals and sponsored posts.

Virat Kohli is one of the finest cricketers this generation has witnessed. Often compared to the great Sachin Tendulkar, Kohli’s hunger for runs and trophies is very much visible and intact at the age of 36. 218 runs in the recently-concluded Champions Trophy 2025 AND a century against Pakistan in a tournament where India emerged as winners, then the photographs with the trophy, the hugs with captain Rohit Sharma – it’s all stuff of dreams for every cricket fan in the country. His Test era has a separate fanbase. His aggressive, unmatched aura against the Australian quicks. His standing up for his wife and actor Anushka Sharma when she was blamed for his failures on the field. His celebratory dance after winning the Champions Trophy 2013. His victory lap with Tendulkar on his shoulders during the 2011 ODI World Cup Triumph. His maturing and mellowing down with age. There is nothing to dislike about the guy. Except for one thing – Virat Kohli’s Instagram account.

But who are we, mere mortal fans of Kohli, to question what the superstar of cricket does with his Instagram account? That’s a fair question. But fans have seemingly grown exhausted by the aggressive Kohli, not the one they have seen growing up intimidating the opponents in their own backyard, but the one that has been aggressively pushing ads from his very own Instagram account. If you haven’t already looked it up, over 270 million folks follow Kohli on the gram. Cricketer’s online reach is incomprehensible by every measure but it’s all just brand deals on his page day in and day out. And it’s giving fans the “ick", if you may.

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Silent rebellion

Reminiscing the “good times", fans have taken up the task to go deep into Kohli’s Instagram account and pull up posts that are devoid of hashtags or sponsored brand deals. Those that show cricketer’s true personality, something that fans feel has been absent in the past few years across his social media accounts.

“AdGram", “Spotify without premium", “Times Square of Instagram" – Kohli’s Instagram account has been given names and they are quite unflattering.

To combat this, a micro trend has quietly kicked off on ‘X’ (formerly known as Twitter), where fans caption their posts with “Life was good when Kohli…" attaching a non-ad post (yes, they exist!) by the cricketer.

Life was good when kohli used to post like this… pic.twitter.com/mi8rovojrq— Astronaut 🚀 (@TheRobustRascal) March 12, 2025

Life was good when kohli used to post like this pic.twitter.com/1ltJ4hxN3N— Rishi (@was_rishi) January 19, 2025

Also Read: Virat Kohli Fans Are Bashing Bisleri On Instagram. The Bottle Flip ‘Controversy’ That Nobody Is Taking About

“Spot the unsponsored post"

Fun activity: Go to Kohli’s Instagram account and a find a post that is not a brand deal. 34 posts of banking app, energy drink, snacks, air conditioner and we reach July of 2024 where we spot a post where the cricketer isn’t selling us anything. It’s a photograph of beaming Team India with Narendra Modi at the Prime Ministers residence.

Team India met up with the PM at the 7, Lok Kalyan Marg residence over breakfast after the T20 World Cup 2024 victory. “An excellent meeting with our Champions! Hosted the World Cup winning team at 7, LKM and had a memorable conversation on their experiences through the tournament," PM Modi wrote in a post on ‘X’.

Mind your own business?

From Virat Kohli’s perspective, it all makes sense. With only few years left to his retirement, a section of fans couldn’t care less about what his Instagram account is being used for. “Go get the bag," is the general sentiment here. Or perhaps it’s to steer away from any kind of controversy?

“Even if he posts something, people will ask why didn’t he post about the other things?"

“He doesn’t get involved in controversies not related to him and doesn’t face unnecessary backlash. I just wish his vlogs didn’t discontinue after COVID. They were fun," wrote one Reddit user.

“If he posts something then people will say what about this or that or what were you doing when this happened or that happened… there’s no end to it better not to post anything, (sic)" commented another in the same discussion around over-commercialisation of Kohli’s Instagram.

BCCI rule

“Players have been informed verbally to avoid posting any confidential matter on social media platforms. They can post pictures while training but posting a score leads to breach of contract clause," a BCCI official was quoted as saying by The Indian Express back in 2023. This was in direct response to Kohli revealing his Yo-Yo score with his millions of fans.

“The happiness of finishing the Yo Yo test between the dreaded cones. 17.2 done."

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This was reportedly considered a breach of contract.

First Published: March 15, 2025, 12:16 IST

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