Online, this writer has a couple thousand followers and friends, in real life, barely a handful. What does that essentially mean? Well, theoretically it boils down to this logical conclusion: If he is ever stupid enough to post links to his scribblings on his various social media, potentially they would reach a few hundred pairs of eyes at the very least. But I doubt the same figures would suffice if he shared the work to his real-life chums.
The same would apply to his videos, live streams and other aspects of his online footprint. That is the promise of social media: to ‘consistently’ (this is a very important word) just throw it all out into the algorithm and cross fingers that not only will enough people get to see but many more will engage with it.
It’s the new gamble. And one that many out there have found the wisdom to take. But as with all gambles, few will ever take home any appreciable winnings, fewer will hit the jackpot, leaving the riff-raff punters inevitably scrambling for the crumbs that fall from the tables of the high rollers. But if there is one undeniable factor, it’s that for the most part, everybody has a chance to give the dice a go and win, even those who cannot afford the R10 000 chips.
Social media and indeed the post-digital age has ushered in a sort of democratization or equal opportunity in a world of skewed class and social dynamics. That is not to suggest that it has eliminated these Marxist nuisances but it has substantially offset them to a point where a data connection and a phone can have a Ghanaian lady living in her modest rondavel hut competing with foreign trust fund scions and Chanel-clad supermodels. And yes, there are plenty such from rags-to-riches stories from Facebook right through to TikTok and Instagram. And daily these beneficiaries are making ‘their bag’ and taking exotic holidays to prove it.
So I couldn’t help but wonder if our colleague Destine Nde’s beautiful piece on children with misplaced dreams of online fame wasn’t only just a tad too cynical but fundamentally myopic. I agree: the obsession the new generation has with the phone screen annoys even this father no end.
But were these misgivings not experienced by the agrarian peasents when education started to mean sending their kids off to read books instead of working the land? Or didn’t those parents who could afford a PC in the 80s or 90s feel that the machines – and games like Doom and Leisure Suit Larry – were corrupting the new generation’s minds? Don’t even get me started on how they might have pulled at their hair at the introduction of the television in Apartheid South Africa.
Innovation, and, by default, new ways of doing tend to have that effect on society. But it is often those who first embrace these innovations who actually go on to do well for themselves in them. This writer will be the first to put his own head on the block and say that SA’s IT industry is run by those said white kids whose parents splurged on a PC when in black communities such an acquisition was something of a privilege back in the day.
Anyway… Like school, or any human endeavour, to finding what usually works on social media, you need to put in the hours. Consistency is key. Nde’s reference to ‘fame’ I’m not sure is the word everybody’s looking for. Again, I agree: many young users want to be ‘famous’ influencers, or want their videos to ‘trend’ or go ‘viral’ but it’s indeed nigh impossible that all of them will achieve that. But ‘fame’ in the context of a world that social media demonstrates in many a viral video doesn’t necessarily always entail being the ‘funniest, the best dancers, the best singers, the wittiest, the wisest, the smartest, and so forth’ is not the be all that ends all.
You can make it quite swimmingly as being the big-toothed ‘idiot’ who’s always always tripping over things, the 40+ year-old Xhosa guy who still stays under his mom’s roof and fights with his very young siblings over the groceries, the teenage boy with dubious street advice, or the white dad who is always at pains trying to disect 90’s rap lyrics to his otherwise indifferent teenage kids.
These are usually videos shot from an ordinary phone, sometimes with poor sound or editing quality, no well-written scripts, but still there they are attracting a following and an engaged audience. Therein lies the key: there is an undeniable appetite for the guy-or-girl-next-door who sometimes doesn’t even have make-up on, who does her laundry in a , cooks on a cast iron pot outside and has siblings with no shoes on and dried snort along their nostrils.
It’s relatable to the millions experiencing tough economic situations but also attracts the attention of those who are curious as to what life looks like in that other country or on the other side of the tracks. Unlike the ‘fantastical’ Don Quixote, these content creators are not looking to make heroes of themselves, only to show themselves to the world just as they are. No filter, no educated words and definitely no ambitions of being the next unsigned hype or chivalrous knight.
And there sometimes is a way to get there: consistency, finding an engaged audience, respecting the community rules might mean eventually earning something. It’ll take a lot of effort, time and meeting challenges and deadlines before you’re able to so much as earn enough gwaap to buy an ice cream at Shoprite, but there are unemployeds here and elsewhere whose social media commitment enables them to buy the monthly groceries.
Township lads whose music – produced inside shanties and on half-broken laptops – is being played on online streams to blown-away listeners in Europe and Asia. Wow, they sometimes exclaim from the panel boxes, this is different. School kids are passing courtesy of online tutors. Single moms are selling buckets of homemade cookies and chilli sauce to people all across the country. These are not thumbsucks, by the way, but real-life success stories I’ve encountered on my infant journey on the socials. Initially, I’d assumed that everybody was on these platforms hoping to hit the big-time.
Instead what I discovered was that that was just one of an assortment of reasons. These socials are an exceptional, cost-effective marketing tool especially if you’ve got the personality. They are cheaper than designing and printing a batch of fliers. They get the message out quicker and to more people than an e-mail. And they enable you, through a combination of video, text and editing tools, to properly and creatively market your business. That means that you are also learning rudimentary skills that should see to your own skills development.
But most importantly they signify the new casino of opportunity that has been opened up. Here, both you and the house can win. And Ubuntu – that is, having the backs of your friends and followers by engaging with their content might mean you all win together. Of course along the way you’ll encounter a whole lot of Quixote-type elements all up in it to make a name for themselves. The trick is to know why you’re there and to never let the unsavoury elements deter you from your character. While you’re at it, learn enough so as to be a reliable guide for the kids because at the end of it all it is them whom this technology had in mind when it was created. And to be cynical about it might mean you are standing in the way of a means by which they will need to navigate the future. Besides, as a parent, you need to keep them safe from the trolls, traffickers and sickos that hide behind fake profiles eager to pounce on unsuspecting children. It’s the least a parent can do.