Third World Spectators

After watching the Confederation Cup in South Africa on TV, I wonder if I'll survive the World Cup without ear buds. It's those vuvuzela things the South African fans use. They sound like bees buzzing in the back of your mind for 90+ minutes. Annoying. Headaching. But this is not about that.

This is about being a Kenyan, an African in the year 2009. I had written about this some years ago*. About how it feels to sit and watch as the rest of the world rushes ahead. Thanks to the internet, I see how far behind we are and it feels bad. Like the people at cracked.com would say, being African means we lost in the lottery of life. It feels like that.

Think about it. Ever seen an African computer? African car? We even import machetes. All modern advancements seem to come from AmericaEuropeAsia. I mean, it's the 21st century and we have not even experienced the Industrial Revolution. No, multinationals with factories in Kenya does not count. Neither does the Jua Kali sector.

Where are the inventors? The venture capitalists? Ever seen a black geek? No, not the ones who copy the latest web 2.0 trends and all that sht, I'm talking about the ones who come up with 100% African Ideas from scratch. African solutions to African problems, African solutions to Global problems.

The writer of Capitalist Nigger lambasts Africans for being consumers and never producers. And since we have lower incomes, even our consumption is behind. We save hard to buy 8 year old ex-Japan cars. Even the rich boy driving the latest Range Rover Sport down Kaunda Street bought it second hand after some guy in Singapore or Germany was done with it. 

I could go on. I will. Later. 

Fck.

To be young, gifted and African

Being a not-old person living in Kenya is sort of like watching a live (foreign) football match on TV. You are watching the action, keeping up with the game, reacting and feeling and cheering and jeering with all the rest...

But you are not actually there. Never really there.

You are not in the stadium playing the drums, chanting the chants, hurling confetti, sweating. You're just trying to re-create the experience, simulating, approximating.

Desperate housewives, Pop Idol, Lost, Pimp my ride, FHM, GQ, Maxim, English Premier League, La liga, UEFA, NOKIA, Motorola, D&AD, Cannes, Blogspot, Google, Yahoo, DoCoMo, BroadBand, the new media revolution, 3G, MMS, mobile TV, TiVo, Wi-Fi, Academy Awards, The Source, 5 Mics, the grammies, G-Unit, The Ministry of Sound, TD Jakes, Bernbach, DDB, Mother, Wieden and Kennedy, TBWA, Trevor Beattie, Nike, Adiddas, Paris Hilton... EVERYTHING THAT HAPPENS HAPPENS SOMEWHERE ELSE, WE JUST WATCH, CATCH UP ON IT ON THE MEDIA. THEIR MEDIA.

To be young gifted and African means to watch the world turning around you and not being able to influence its motion. It means to try, try, try. To be a tadpole going upstream, to swim against economic and political and cultural realities, to be a seedling trying to be a tree somewhere in the Kalahari.

Refuse to be insignificant. 

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Posted by mudskippah to mudskippah at 5/26/2006 12:35:00 AM 

The Nivea ad that got me blogging again.

3 men freshening up after a gym work out. The kind of men who appear in the kind of ads made for the kind of products Beiersdorf (the makers of Nivea) makes. Confident perfect-teethed smiles, chiseled torsos, smooth skin etc etc. They are engaged in one of those male bonding sessions that only happen in this kind of ad, where they look so friendly you half expect them to start caressing each other lovingly manly-ly in the next scene. But I digress...

One of the men is applying Nivea lotion slowly, sensually, masculinely, all over his confident alpha-male self while the rest look at him and laugh. Bla bla.

They step out into the open world. Hot car pulls over. Hot woman steps out. Eyes the 3 men. Of course Mr.Lotioned stands out, shines, exudes sex appeal and all that attraction jazz. Walks confidently to hot chick and yada yada yada they drive off to the kind of places that that kind of couples drives off to in that kind of situation.

Meanwhile, the 2 apes left behind do the math. Nivea + Man = Hot woman. So they dash back to the gym, where, presumably, alpha-male left his bottle of lotion. Etc. You can almost see them frantically lotioning each other in a moment of noble male camaraderie.  

MORAL OF THE STORY:

As soon as we men see that ad, we shall run to the shop, buy Nivea lotion and get all the hot chicks.

I THINK_ someone in South Africa (where all Nivea marketing for Africa is done) thinks their target audience comprises primarily of baboons.

*

Yes, the ad feels very gay. I am not homophobic. I'm not gay. I'm just pointing out that the ad feels very gay. But that's beside the point.

Return of the idiot

A Nivea TV ad made for baboons, among other things, made me come back to the world of blogging. It's been about 2 years!