Social media by day is repositioning itself as the new oil well. Everybody is getting into that space to have a cut of their share through monetization, the new word on the lips of everyone.
The rush is so crazy, the space gradually becoming a dumping ground for all manner of junks in the name of content creation. Boundaries lost, sensitivity gone, decency fizzled and godliness archived. Nothing matters, nothing else is considered once it attracts traffic, with likes and share rising, they are good to go! Not minding if it exposes sensitive areas.
With the rate people create content with anything, it would be most unusual not to think that Nigeria and the present economic hardship could be a skit created by our leaders to get international and global traction.
Everything is “skitable” so real in orchestration, one wouldn’t have the slightest idea that it was skited.
Months back, a popular content creator who used her family lifestyle to create content scripted a narrative and presented it as a reality show. She made her millions of fans believe it was her daily real life, uncensored, real-time with no manipulations.
They all fell for it, bought into the personality she built around herself and family, hook, line and sinker.
In their eyes, she was a woman whose relationship with her maids was mutual, cordial without any tincture of classism.
Eventually, the bubbles got burst and the truth around the whole thing known. The truth was that she scripted it. Got actors to act it out and sucked millions of her fans to believe it was real-time narrations of her daily lifestyle with her maids. It was so real, so enthralling, so emotional and humane, everyone else started seeing her from the lenses of perfection, a model of how maids should be treated.
She smartly weaved the message of dignity in labour, human rights, respect and values devoid of class or status considerations around her scripts.
If you asked me, it was a master class skit. Make believe, but made to be believed as real time, which every person that watched and followed them fell for.
Few days ago, social media went agog again with a lady who tore the passport of her husband upon arrival in Nigeria. It went viral, a talking point that trended with massive watch, likes and shares.
Feelers trending now is that it was a skit with the intention of growing their pages. Though yet to be confirmed, assuming it was without conceding, it beats me how such a sensitive thing, the pride and honor of a country can be used as skit material. We have gotten to that point of melting, a point where what matters is how much, how to cash out, how to trend and how much followers our content is able to garner. Whatever it takes to do and achieve this doesn’t matter, not even going nude and exposure of sensitive areas.
Have you discovered that the fastest growing and easy to get shares and likes are nudity or anything that offends the sensibility of decency, godliness and integrity? For skit to get traction with the magic of a wand, it must have the characteristics of the above, else it becomes a scroll up, jump and pass thing.
My wish that Nigeria was a skit and all that we are passing through, the hardship, the inflation, the hunger etc another skit to the many skits that social media is awashed with.
Come to think of it without sounding so condescending, every bit of what happens at the three arms of the Government ( The Executive, the Legislative and the Judiciary) has no less semblance with what we watch on social media as skits. Nicely put, a big joke, sometimes dry and unhumorous, leaving us with tearing eyes and stuttering mouth with one question on our lips, “who did this to us”?
That snake swallowed millions of dollars, doesn’t sound like a skit? That subsidy is gone and we are still paying subsidy, doesn’t look like a skit? That Nigerians are passing through hell, scraping up life while billions of naira of Nigeria is spent on renovation of houses, buying of aircrafts and yachts don’t sound like a skit?That INEC flauted her internal laws and flagrantly disobeyed her promises and commitment to the masses barefacedly didn’t look like a skit? That an oil-producing national had to import fuel and other petroleum products doesn’t seem like a skit?
How does it not look like if not a skit that an individual in a country where the masses are living in abject poverty receives 30million naira as monthly salary for being a Legislator?
Nigeria is a skit and our political leaders content creators, cashing out while the masses get shrivelled by day in abject lack.
May God help us!
Jarlath Uche Opara Jarlathuche@gmail.com
