I am bemused and humbled in equal measure every time I read about Pied Pipers (aka social-media influencers) who have millions of people clicking on their pages, like Pavlovian dogs, every day – often many times a day. Because I’m all too mindful that, more often than not, the only thing people get from those pages is promotional fluff about the lifestyles of the rich and famous (or wannabe poseurs).
By contrast, regular readers of this blog would readily attest that, when my posts aren’t feeding nourishing food for thought, they’re exhorting action for the general welfare. So I’d like to think the world would be a much better place if my blog posts had only half as many people clicking on them as, oh let’s say, Kylie Jenner’s social-media pages.
To be fair, though, those Pied Pipers occasionally use their pages to draw attention to worthy causes. No less an influencer than Rihanna demonstrated this nearly 10 years ago with one pithy tweet, which championed the #StopKony2012 campaign.
Except that, by then, I had already been writing commentaries for years pleading in the proverbial wilderness for the US and EU to help the AU stop Kony. I cite in particular “If You Thought Idi Amin Was Evil, Meet Joseph Kony…,” March 27, 2006. He was and, alas, remains the elusive figure whose Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) has terrorized Uganda, the DR Congo, and the Central African Republic in ways even Osama bin Laden and his al Qaeda must have admired.
Unfortunately, Rihanna’s tweet appeared, and her interest in the fate of Kony’s victims disappeared, like a shooting star. In fact, the whole viral, hashtagging interest in Kony was such that I ended up dismissing it as follows:
Invisible Children’s entire campaign smacks of little more than a feel-good PR stunt (perhaps even a misleading ploy to raise funds for administrative rather than charitable purposes). … I would wager a fair amount of my pride that if you were to ask Rihanna or any of her followers a week from today who Joseph Kony is, they would react as if you had asked what the Higgs Boson is.
(“Tweeting the Genocidal Joseph Kony to Death?” The iPINIONS Journal, March 8, 2012)
I share all of the above to put into context the cynicism that informed my reaction when a similar hashtag campaign, namely #BringBackOurGirls, went viral in a vain attempt to stop Boko Haram. This group of Black Islamists had begun aping Kony’s LRA in every way. But it became most notorious for kidnapping schoolgirls by the hundreds.
Sadly, the commonplace nature of such kidnappings was such that I began writing about Boko Haram’s exploits in a commentary titled “…Nobody Cares?! Then Call Me Nobody,” May 2, 2012.
But my simmering cynicism found tragic relief from the self-flattering, self-serving and self-deluding hashtag protests these kidnappings incited. I expressed it in “Remembering the Chibok Girls (and Boys),” April 17, 2015. Specifically, I recalled Nigerian cartoonist Tayo Fatunla depicting a child writing a letter asking Ebola “to pay the entire Boko Haram a visit.” Because I deadpanned at the time that
His letter/prayer couldn’t be any less effective than a bunch of American celebrities – who couldn’t tell Boko Haram from an Arab Harem – posting #BringBackOurGirls selfies.
(“On Second Thought, Ebola Might Be Good for Some Africans,” The iPINIONS Journal, November 8, 2014)
Clearly, my interest in the fate of these girls has extended far beyond posting a hashtag tweet. Even so, their hashtag protests ended five years ago. Yet Boko Haram has continued kidnapping girls with not only defiant impunity but nary a disapproving tweet from any of those influencers. In fact, this moved me to mark the second anniversary of the kidnapping of the Chibok girls with “#BringBackOurGirls Lost In Dustbin of Viral Consciousness,” April 18, 2016.
Moreover, just as it was with Rihanna and #StopKony2012, here is how I lamented the lack of interest those with far greater influence than I have shown in the fate of these kidnapped girls:
________
This kidnapping incited universal outrage. Never mind that this outrage manifested in little more than people – most notably celebrities like Rihanna, Madonna, and Michelle Obama – posting #BringBackOurGirls on their social media pages.
Yet you’d be hard-pressed to find any mention of these girls on those pages since then. Which is why it’s hardly surprising that this tragic anniversary passed for so many as if ‘the Chibok girls’ never entered public consciousness.
Mind you, Boko Haram kidnapped many more schoolchildren (i.e. girls and boys) with nary a mention in mainstream or social media.
________
That was then. This is now:
Gunmen raided a boarding school in northwestern Nigeria early Friday and kidnapped more than 300 girls, marking the third mass abduction of children since December in Africa’s most populous nation.
The assailants struck the Government Girls Secondary School in Zamfara state in a predawn ambush, teachers and residents said, waking up the town as shots rang out.
By daylight Friday, community members tallied the missing — 317 vanished into the night, local police said — while security forces scoured the area, which has been plagued by kidnappings in recent months.
(The Washington Post, February 26, 2021)
Yet influencers can’t even be bothered to post fleeting tweets about their fate these days. To be fair,
- Michelle is probably too busy auditioning talent for her and Barack’s Netflix production gig;
Rihanna is probably too busy recovering from butt injections in preparations for the next photo shoot for her $1 billion Savage X Fenty lingerie line; and- Rashida is probably too busy tweeting #TimesUpGlobes at the Foreign Press Association; you know, #OscarSoWhite – cum – #GoldenGlobesSoWhite. (Because it’s far more important to get Black actors in Hollywood to get their Golden Globes than it is for Black children to get their freedom? And don’t get me started on the hypocrisy of Spike Lee pimping out his Black kids as waiters to serve those Globes to all-white actors last night.)
Having said all that, I fear this is a case for the Serenity Prayer. And by that I mean the first line that asks God to grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change.
Frankly, it’s self-evident that I have no power or influence to rescue these kidnapped girls from the demonic devices of Boko Haram. They would stand a much better chance, however, if social-media stars used their considerable influence to pressure governments to intervene. Because their now wield the kind of power and influence I presaged in “Celebrity-Obsessed World Has Made Actors and Rock Stars the Statesmen of Our Times.” May 23, 2005.
Apropos of which, like family and friends, you might wonder how I feel about women like the Kardashians using nothing more than fake butts and trout pouts to wield so much influence on the world stage. Because, as indicated above, when it comes to “clicks,” I’m like Anthony the obscure compared with them.
I am mindful, however, that no less a man than Julius Caesar had this problem with Cleopatra. But seriously, my mummy assured me from a very young age that, if I simply brighten my little corner wherever I am, whenever I can, my light would shine in places I cannot see – just like the ripple effect from one pebble dropped in my Caribbean Sea.
Related commentaries:
Joseph Kony… tweeting Kony… Chibok girls… #bringbackourgirls…celebrity-obsessed world…