I think I woke up one morning to find out
Nigeria had caught the online celebrity gossip bug or am I wrong? Did it happen
gradually?
In brief instances of contemplation I have
asked myself what comes alive in all of us when we stumble upon a gossip, what
the overriding feeling is and if truly there is pleasure in it. There are
answers somewhere, I’m sure of it, just that I’m not so sure people will be
willing to admit these answers are true because in a way it shines a light on
their individual depravities. One
undeniable fact is gossip has always been a part of us since man has been able
to communicate with each other. In business terms gossip is a key constituent
of word of mouth and public relations so in some way it becomes apparent that
gossip is in some way a necessary evil.
I am not one who says all of these things
in a ‘I’m better than the rest of you’- sense because I also occasionally find myself
drawn into gossip and I have come to see that more times than most it has spun
an unpalatable web of destruction in its wake. It is almost as if we have all
forgotten how our Sunday school teachers used to tell us how bad gossiping was. Now it’s what must make up ‘decent
conversation’ in most social circles. To take it up a notch the celebrity is
the one who both suffers and benefits from this chatter phenomenon.
The unanswered question is ‘Why the
obsession with celebrity gossip?’, what are the benefits or is it just some
sort of permissible lewd gratification? I don’t know who has the answer but
I’ll keep searching. Deep down, I know I might never get a decent one, it was
some sort of wary amusement when I first discovered prints such as City People
and Global Encomium while they were still the main source of celebrity gossip
but the lack of frequency allowed for some sort of belief that society as I
knew it retained an illusion of decency.
Cue the proliferation of social media
alongside the platforms such as Blogspot and Wordpress, the anonymous comment-
droppers association now have a home. Their dreams of expressing bitterness
without a face has finally come true so with every sizzling celebrity gossip
revelation we expect some form of sub-plot in the comment section, usually it
has nothing to do with the actual story or gossip but rather with deep seated
bitterness and for some unexplained reason battles are fought and won,
ancestries are deconstructed. The comment section, a place so filled with
repressed bitterness and manifestations of childhood trauma, a perfect source
of black comedy and a stark indication of how far gone our ability to be
sympathetic is.
Do even celebrities gossip about themselves
(I think they do)? Or maybe this is the way we are hardwired? Created in such a
way that in those idle moments we’re meant to compulsively talk about a person,
to deconstruct and judge them.
What’s the hottest topic these days? Miley
Cyrus’ continuous downward spiral and her tongue antiques? The media’s baiting
of Kanye? Domestically it gets even more ridiculous when you see the headlines
on such blogs as Linda Ikeji. A new hair style by Ms. Tonto Dike or a bikini
clad Rukky sanda posting pictures of herself. You begin to ask what the
entertainment value is in these stories (if I may call them that) or are there
really so many idle minded people around with such keen interests.
Some school of thought holds that
celebrities as a result of their public status should not be spared any form of
privacy and therefore should be prepared to have every aspect of their lives
micro analysed and written about. I for one am not sure about that. Who wrote
these rules? We all didn’t agree or ratify them. So what are we really talking
about here? In this new age of facelessness and online pseudo- identities are
we now therefore at liberty to discard all morality and pander to our basal
desires unhindered without empathy.
Whatever you do, always remember, folks are
talking about you too.
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