If you get rattled by the title of this article, I’ll ask you to be a bit indulgent and not get your nails out. This is not an attack directed at a particular people. It is simply due to the fact that the Anglophone community being the one that I interact more with and have more friends in, gives me a certain clarity with which I can observe certain…. let’s say trends… and so can, therefore, give a certain number of my viewpoints on a good number of topics, amongst which is this one.
Life and social media have taught me two very valuable lessons.
If I have learned one thing in this life, it is that when you work really hard at whatever hustle you have going on, so long as you are consistent in that, sooner or later people are going to take notice and they will talk about you to others and someone will gladly hold your hand and pull you up to a place where you can gain even wider recognition. It never happens overnight, it takes patience, hard work and a good measure of ethics and self-preservation. I’ll explain what I mean by self-preservation.
If there’s one thing I learned about social media it is that sometimes the most effusive praises are sometimes the most insincere and if you are not careful, you can get caught up in the hype that a lot of people give in comment sections. You may think the recent dress design that you posted on Facebook is actually great judging from the comments when honestly, your cousins and friends telling you what an accomplished designer you are, are really just being polite and trying not to hurt your feelings.
Social media has also taught me that you have to be careful about who you term as “haters.” A lot of the people who criticise you are not haters, they are just being real. And you are better off listening to them than blocking them. It takes a lot of discernment and a great openness to criticism to be able to weed out the good seeds of comments from the bad ones.
Why do I say all these things?
Well, I have been seeing and looking at a lot of things happening mostly on social media and have been perplexed at how often we heap praises on things that are yet to garner enough of what should constitute praise-worthiness in their different fields.
I cannot count the number of times that I have been to YouTube and seen the description of a recently released song being described as a ‘club-banger’. Shouldn’t a song have at least banged in the club for at least a six months to a year before we call it a club-banger?
Or is there another definition of club-banger that I am oblivious to? Please let me know.
I cannot count the number of times I have been to the comments section of a recently released song on YouTube and someone in the comments section says “this song is a classic.” Shouldn’t a song have stood the test of time and popularity to be called a classic?
Petit Pays’ “Muto” is a classic of Makossa music. BoB Marley’s “No woman No cry” is a reggae classic. Je ne suis pas ton Bonbon is not a classic. At least not yet. Time, Audience recall, generational handing down and YouTube views will tell us in 15 years if or not it will be. No offence to Blanche.
One reason I believe this happens is because, more than ever, we as a people have attained a level of kiss-assing that we have never done in the history of our species. More and more of us are concerned with gaining followers than we are at gaining value out of those whom we meet in the real world and in the cyberspace.
We put the most valuable metrics of our lives on not how happy we could be and on the value of our social currencies, but rather on how many likes and shares and the other godforsaken social media metrics we have. And so we want to associate with those we think are cool so we can look cool too by hyping the things they do.
That is why you will see someone describe a Cameroonian movie that has only had a red carpet premiere and no distribution whatsoever as a blockbuster. Whether they do know what a blockbuster is, is in itself another debate. But hey, it sounds good doesn’t it?
Another reason I think this happens is that, now, most of what we do, is done for the gram. We do a lot of window-dressing and we are more focused on the red carpet and the aesthetics rather than what we really want to put out as products. That is why we will organise one event with a good idea behind it while marketing its second edition as the ‘biggest’ event of that kind ever.
It is heart-breaking, to say the least. Sometimes I want to get into the comments section and say what is on my mind. But I hate to make people feel like I’m being pedantic, I also hate to have to deal with the people in the comment section that will call me a hater.
And that is where I say a lot of self-preservation is needed. We need to be able to check ourselves and know when we produce quality work and where we are lacking in certain skills that need improvement. If we do not do not that, then we will fall into the blockbuster and club-banger trap and will not grow or we will grow but not in the right way that we would have.
I get very frustrated with the quality of the articles that I write here most of the times. The truth, that you guys don’t know, is that I hesitate before posting many of my articles here for the simple reason that I find them very wanting. Yet I’ve got nothing but praise for my writing skills. People may disagree with the content, but not once has anyone disagreed with my style and skill.
I could grow a big head and think that after Chinua Achebe, is me. But I will not fall into the trap you guys are setting for me. I am trying to be in my self-preservation element. I still have a long way to go. My favourite article I have written here is the one on Maahlox. My creative juices were running in every vein in my fingers that day and every word that I put down that day is really an apt description of who I am as a writer and who I am as a person.
Yet I don’t consider it as my best work. I can do better.
Someone once posted on here that “in the age of social media, if you don’t have a good sense of discernment, you will end up taking advice from fools with likes from other fools.”
They could not have said it better.
I think we owe it as a responsibility to one another and to ourselves to be able to check ourselves when in the position to give the praises and the criticisms that would help people grow. Doing otherwise will not help us. We not only have to be better than everyone else, but we also have to be the best of ourselves. And that starts by being able to eliminate the superfluous from our lives and our vocabulary.
- Wandji Wilfred.
P.S* I used the picture of Adah Akenji for two reasons. One. I admire his body of work and the artistry he brings to his videos. He is silent and efficient. The kind of person I like to be friends with. Secondly, any social media engagement 101 class will tell you that people are more likely to click on something they recognise than otherwise. It’s a bit of click-bait I put there. If you didn’t like this article, then I am sorry I sort of tricked you into clicking.