I’ve barely been online lately, but the few times I’ve managed to check social media, my timeline has been flooded no, drenched with news about Tuface and Annie. It’s like an unending soap opera that no one subscribed to but somehow, everyone is watching. You can’t scroll for two seconds without bumping into another hot take, a think piece, or a ‘concerned fan’ offering unsolicited marriage counseling.
It’s overwhelming. Even the algorithm has given up trying to show me anything else. I just wanted to see a funny meme or check on the price of tomatoes, but no Tuface and Annie’s saga must be seen, must be heard, must be analyzed from every possible angle. At this point, I feel like their distant in-law dragged into family meetings I wasn’t invited to.
But honestly, why are we like this? Can we let these people breathe? Or at least, can the gossip rest small?
Why are we so obsessed with other people’s lives?
Is nothing interesting happening in ours?
We like to pry into what’s happening in other people’s lives. Reason programmes like Big Brother Naija draw the highest crowds.
Are our own lives so boring that we need to dissect and prod into someone else’s in order to have something to talk about?
To be in the limelight means maintaining and projecting a certain image at all times, regardless of what is happening around you.
To be in the limelight means being vulnerable to the public, being an object of speculation, and adoration, and when things go sour, ridicule.
To be a star, famous and popular comes with a price. When the public thinks that they know you and follow your every move and dissect your every word, you are placed on a pedestal that you aren’t allowed to step off.
People will think they know you.
They think that they know you better than you know yourself.
The masses expect you to act, behave and live in a certain way.
They expect you to be flawless at all times. They expect perfection from you.
They expect and demand that you live up to their standards of what a celebrity should be.
Your clothes should be new, your lifestyle should reflect your status and you aren’t allowed to make a single mistake.
When you are in the public eye, you’re not allowed to make a single mistake. You aren’t even allowed to have a controversial opinion because you are expected to be the epitome of perfection, flawlessness, and grace,
The public ceases to see you as a human being and you get elevated to a position of a god. But unlike a god, they are waiting for you to portray human-like traits. They are waiting for you to fail and they will burn you alive when you do.
No errors, human weakness, vulnerability, and definitely you aren’t allowed to show that you are just a human being amidst other human beings.
They take it upon themselves to be the judges and jurors over your life.
They will closely watch your every move as they scrutinize it, ready to point out an imperfection, ready to crucify you if you fail to uphold the standards upon which they have dictated for you.
Heaven forbid you have a slip-up.
Or show vulnerability.
Or say and do something the public disagrees with.
You are canceled.
The people who had earlier adored you go up in an uproar, criticizing you, hating on you, and telling you that you should have known better.
This is why many celebrities’ mistakes become scandals and the tabloids have a field day digging up every single one of them to feed the unforgiving and insatiable public. They will even distort the truth for the likes and to go viral.
A breakup, a breakdown, or an argument gets blown up out of proportion when it happens to a celebrity.
Don’t forget that people are breaking up every day while others are cheating and getting cheated on left and right. But no one is going around creating memes about it because the parties aren’t famous people.
But wait and hear that a musician or a film star is going through a divorce and everyone will suddenly get opinions on the matter.
The self-proclaimed investigators will find every bit of history on the person and use it to feed on the fire further.
Something which should be a private matter between two people becomes the newest thing on the internet with people giving their two pence.
Others will troll the person they think was in the wrong and start a movement to boycott what the person stands for ignoring the fact that they don’t even know half of the story.
Is the issue the first or the last one in the history of the human race? Is their error in any way a matter of global concern? Is the person’s mistake the worst thing to ever have happened in the world? Not at all.
The only reason a huge percentage of the world will be discussing it is that it happened to a famous person. The only reason the matter will become a matter of public knowledge is that as celebrities, one isn’t allowed to err and put a dent into the image the public has of them. Not forgetting that the same people casting stones are the same people who are in secret leading the most questionable lives.
The public doesn’t allow another person to be human and go through human things like disagreements, fights, reactions, or worse weaknesses.
The famous couple will not be accorded privacy and grace in their moment of hardship in case they are going through normal life troubles. Instead, there will be all kinds of videos of people trying to explain and speculate how it started, will end and how they brought it upon themselves.
Being in the limelight means that you never get a moment to live your life without everyone trying to impose their views on it.
People out here are making mistakes every day and getting away with it, but wait until the same people hear that a certain celebrity has done something deemed unacceptable. Wait until someone famous makes a controversial comment. They will flood the internet to demand the person apologizes, making it known now how the person has failed the world.
There will be all kinds of mean things being said by imperfect people who expect someone else to be perfect.
This is the sort of nauseating hypocrisy you will see being accorded to anyone in the public eye.
Why does this happen? Why does someone with flaws expect someone else to be perfect and condemn them when they fail to uphold that?
Social media has great powers. It is one of the places you can learn, get entertained, and interact with people from all over the world in the palm of your hand. It is a tool that can make you rich; financially and intellectually if you use it right.
It is also where bullying has become rampant, with people hiding behind pseudo accounts saying anything they want.
Without the fear of repercussions, without accountability, and without a care about who they hurt, social media has become a space where grown-ups behave reprehensibly while exhibiting the ugly combination of ignorance and arrogance.
Stephanie Shaakaa
University of Agriculture, Makurdi, Benue state.
