DUBAI (AlArabiya.net)
Thousands of people have joined the new "Tamer's Haters" Web site, determined to strip Egyptian pop icon Tamer Hosni of his title, "King of the Generation."
The title was bestowed upon the young singer-composer-actor by famed Egyptian producer Mohamed El-Sobki during the release of the film, Omar wa Salma (Omar and Salma), this summer.
But the moniker has angered some fans, who have now launched the "Tamer's Haters" Web site, which has already drawn over 1,000 subscribers.
The site includes a list of Hosni's "provocative" statements, including his recent criticism of Egyptian superstar singers Amr Diab and Mohamed Mounir, and his comment that his performances outshine actors Adel Imam and Mohamed Saad.
Hosni has said that the statements, published in an independent Egytian daily, are false.
The Web site also includes a section that criticizes the lyrics of his songs, especially those deemed to be licentious. Another section called "thefts" posts all the news stories in which Hosni was accused of stealing other people's songs.
The popular social networking site, Facebook, also abounds with anti-Hosni clubs which question his integrity after he forged his military service documents.
In 2005, Hosni was sentenced to three years in a military prison on charges of forging a passport to avoid conscription. The sentence was later reduced and he served one year in prison before being released in August 2006.
But the trial did little to deter his fans – mostly teenage girls -- who held up traffic around the Abbasiya Criminal Court for two hours while they protested his sentencing, waving posters of the pop icon and screaming his name.
As Hosni himself has noted, he enjoys huge support from his online fan clubs that include over 200,000 members.
In one well-known case of Tamer-mania, an Egyptian woman asked for a divorce from her husband on the grounds that he was too jealous of Tamer, after he tore up her posters and confiscated two CDs.
According to Egypt's Al-Ahram weekly, the woman claimed that she had not realized the extent of her husband's jealousy even though she admitted to spending hours listening to Hosni and wearing black in mourning for his imprisonment.
Hosni began acting in the 1990s, and made his musical debut in 2002 with the hit song, Habeebi wenta be'eed (My love, while you're away). He went on to release his first album Hob (Love) in 2004. His third album, Ya bentel-eih (Naughty girl), was released while he was doing time.
(Translated from Arabic by Sonia Farid). |
