Social media is not for the weak or thin-skin

Not everybody deserved access to an android phone and data connection. I went on reading the comments on the post made about the true paternity of a prominent gospel singer’s child and all I could do was shake my head.

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Nigerians loved to joke around everything forgetting that people had emotions and that the internet never forgets.

There were so many crude comments everywhere, some people began pointing fingers, saying that the child looked like another prominent gospel artist.

The rate at which people didn't mind their businesses these days on social media was getting alarming, it was the celebrities I pitied, they always had their names in the mud whether they were doing something good or not.

I learned a few weeks ago that this new social media attitude was known as cancel culture. It was when people publicly called out other people, especially on social media, for their perceived wrongdoing.

Sometimes it was helpful, just as people began to call out a TikTok influencer recently for saying she could not go out with a man who didn't give her the sum of 500k before they started a relationship. Sometimes, it just constituted a nuisance in the online space, bringing about strife and hatred.

As I scrolled through the comments, I didn't think anyone deserved any explanation from the gospel artist. Whether her child looked like another man or not, we were neither her husband, her family, or relatives. Knowing the true father of her baby wasn't beneficial to the public in any way, so why were they making a big deal out of it?

It was possible that in some cases the cancel culture had worked to bring certain individuals to order, but it was getting overly rampant and annoying. I wondered if the people my brother referred to as online neighbors didn't have jobs to do.

It seemed like some of them intentionally got up in the morning just to go online and look for gossip about people then begin to call them out. There were the other set of people who were perpetually online to respond to the posts of the online neighbors, was that all they had to do?

I sighed wearily and dropped my phone to get myself a steaming plate of the Jollof rice I prepared the day before. For me, Jollof rice was sweeter the day after it had been prepared.

As I peeled a boiled egg which I intended to eat along my rice, my mind went back to a post I saw recently concerning a prominent pastor and his member who came to share with the congregation what she said God did for her. She was supposed to have attained a bachelor's degree in Law yet she couldn't compose a simple sentence. This made the pastor debunk her testimony as fake.

I had gone through the comments on that day too, seeing how people insulted the pastor. Yes, he made a mistake with handling that particular issue but I was quite certain that if any of those same people who came out to say he was wrong were in his shoes, they probably would have done worse.

During that period, everyone had something negative to say, forgetting that he didn't have a track record of debunking people's testimonies, it just happened that day because of the situation he was faced with.

I would have understood if a few agitated people reacted to his response. I too felt quite embarrassed after watching the video, but for a great deal of the social media population to come out and say awful things about him, that was really low for me.

No matter how many people had learned their mistakes because they were called out on social media, I still didn't buy the cancel culture idea. It was more destructive than edifying and even when people knew that some comments were completely unnecessary, they went ahead to say it because they had a platform.

For me, it had to stop.

I took my plate of rice back to my bed. There was nothing more appetizing than being in the comments section of a trending post with something delicious to eat. However, this time, I was no longer in the comments for the gospel singer who had been accused of having her baby with another man.

I wanted to read the comments attached to the video of the podcast where that Nigerian TikTok influencer said she would only go out with a man who could give her 500k a few hours, or days, after they met.

Those were the kinds of issues that should be called out in my opinion so it didn't lead the younger generation astray, and I trusted my social media neighbors, they would not fail to deliver on this particular gist.