Dear Nigerians, enjoy the show and keep your phones in your pockets | 9jatalkzblog

Nigerians are more interested in shooting videos and pictures for social media than actually enjoying concerts
Social media is a blessing and a curse. On the one hand, it created a new user experience that compresses earth inside one while creating brand new jobs and improving on the already existent.

It also created modern billionaires who employ thousands of people and aid thousands of causes annually.

But last year, a scientist drew an inference between social media, psychedelics/psychoactive and addiction.

He broke down how the usage of social media itself isn’t the addiction, but the new ‘reward system’ of likes, retweets, and comments which leave people either elated or disappointed.

A few months ago a friend said, “On social media, we’re all clout-chasing,” and I couldn’t help but agree. People are now more concerned with looking good, proving they’re living well on social media than actually living well in real life.

It’s why we all post pictures in our best outfits while we’re at posh locations or exclusive events — the need to prove that we’re better than those watching us. The subconscious need to be called, “Chairman” without being a real Chairman - it's the subtle obsession with adulation.

It’s all a giant fugazi of faux self-promotion and it’s why people keep whipping out their phones at events when they should be enjoying events.

The obsession with clout-chasing

It’s why fans take pictures on social media for the sole reason of posting on social media. When you send a tweet, a part of you is disappointed when that ‘fire’ tweet gets no retweets, comments, likes or interactions.

We’re all fake and we need to wake up to that fact. The only reason you post concert videos on your WhatsApp or Instagram story is to prove that you were there and you saw Burna Boy or that you can afford tickets.

It all came to a head earlier this year while I watched E! Reality show, WAGS LA where one of the girls said, “If you didn’t Snapchat it, it never happened.” We have all lost our heads and it’s sad to watch.

We know, ‘it’s just modern practice’

While one can just pin it down to modern practice that anyone does without real thought, it’s not just modern practice. People really hustle to get these shots and are disappointed when those shots start nothing on social media.

We could also say that people who don’t take these videos at events just want the pleasure of ‘feeling different/special’ like they’re not following the crowd, but some of them just want to enjoy the show.

The biggest memory card is the human brain. You’re not shooting these pictures or videos to watch later because you’re never going back to them again.

That’s if they even survive the next 24 hours after going up on social media — they never do. It’s just a simple celebration of fakeness that nobody has stopped to examine.

If you want to treasure memories, you only have to search your mind to access those memories. If taking these videos were gonna help you remember, you could always upload to the cloud, not social media.

It all becomes hilarious when we all do this, then proceed to call another person ‘fake’ or a ‘show pony’ in the craziest show of ignorant hypocrisy ever.

While writing on this issue for Urban Central last year, Nico said, “It’s a coupling of the already highlighted terrible social behavior that pivots on the inherent desire of man to show off.

“Let no man deceive you, we have always been a vain people.

“The closet doors and Samsung flip phones have simply been replaced with Twitter handles, Snapchat filters and iPhones in a generation that “documents” every single occurrence only to have them shipped directly to a social media feed hinged upon an almost diabolic reward system of likes, views, and RTs, that cheats us out of experiencing and enjoying those moments with all the empathy that comes with them.

“Considering this, it is ascertainable that the event merely becomes another avenue to capture “moments” for #AsoEbiDay or any other intolerable hashtag you can conjure up.”

It hits you when you consider how millennials take pictures and videos for social media while terrible fates like accidents and death get occasioned.

It happened when the rapper, XXXTentacion was shot earlier this year, it happens with nearly every viral video you see on Instablog9ja. We have gone mad and we don’t even realize it.

There’s no wrong or right

Except in situations where we watch bad things happen while shooting videos and taking pictures, there’s no right or wrong.

However, there’s excess and moderation. It is now left for you to decide on which side you belong.