Author: askciiku

Kenyan TikTok

People often tell me I’m hard on Kenyan TikTok but I do not think I am.

I’m just going to say it, I believe it is a lack of personality across the spectrum is so loud on TikTok. Like if you don’t have a personality you come off as boring and that’s most of Kenyan TikTok. Especially when all you can do is copy what other more interesting people do.

Even the refusal to accept this criticism is emblematic of many things wrong with Kenyans on many social media platforms. By design I can just scroll past your boring nonsense and that is my criticism of the otherwise pretty good TikTok algorithm. I shouldn’t be forced to watch Kenyan TikTok just because we are in the same location.

And honestly that snarkiness that is rampant on Twitter doesn’t translate well on TikTok. Those TikToks that are dope and engaging and entertaining require that one have a personality. I wish, most – just like me – would opt to only be viewers. Not all the time posting.

Anyway, some few things I’ve observed thus far:

We’ve been told that we can monetize travel and eating out and that’s why many posts are about that. Oh I went here even if all I did was walk through the place.

I did not get TikTok to see you try and sell me something. And then starting the TikTok with “Don’t scroll” means I will scroll immediately. The posts are dry!!!

Twitter lied to you that you are a thought leader, that shit is boring on TikTok.

How many HR tips can one give? This also goes for every other career talking head person on there…. it is just I don’t know….. dry.

Kenyans married to white people are just…..ugh. This isn’t a personality my people please.

White people with passport privilege moving to Kenya and Kenyans fangirling in the comments will forever be disgusting. Instead of welcoming them, more Kenyans should be commenting “smells like white privilege” in the comments.

Stop taking memes from Twitter and then putting a laughing track on them and thinking that is content.

Christians and other Bible thumpers. *facepalm*

Misogynists. Oh lawd the boring misogynists. The unoriginality of it all.

Grief

How are you doing?

And how are you grieving?

There is so much loss around us and I do not know how to process it all.

We are forced to postpone things for a future that remains uncertain and to be honest, sometimes I feel like I might explode.

Even beyond the pandemic, there is so much happening – in the country, in our homes, work places, IN OUR LIVES.

And even when grief is one aspect of life that we have been able to do as a community – and now that is even hard. Social distancing and staying safe – you know?

It is all just so sad.

Thoughts on “This is Pop”

The Boyz II Men episode was fascinating to me because history will repeat itself over and over. Even right now if you look you will see a repeat of the same.

JC Chasez has always been the better singer in NSYNC. Justin Timberlake owes Britney Spears a lot. A hell of a lot.

The auto tune episode where the dude said that auto tune now allowed them to choose between a beautiful person as opposed to someone who can sing is another reason why I believe Jorja Smith is an industry plant.

Listen, most of the time I think people think Kanye West is a genius because he said it.

T-Pain said many things but what I’d like to remind many is when he said “if you don’t like it then I didn’t make it for you”

As I watched Ace of Base I actually found out they aren’t neo nazis. The founder in his teens was part of a group that had those beliefs and he acknowledged, recanted and has apologised over and over about it.

Sexism exists in every single industry and facet.

The country episode was so white you’d forget the genre was initially a black genre.

Let’s specifically talk about drug use and how men are forgiven for it and lauded for overcoming it and women are left to die in obscurity. What happened with Tanya Tucker has happened to many women and a damn shame.

Skin, in the Britpop episode, said “that was what the straights were doing” made me chuckle. Let’s normalise that!

The history of Glastonbury Festival(the biggest festival in the world) is fascinating. Because even the founder was not in the industry and has been able to sustain it for decades. When he talks about the ethos I had to look up the price of tickets and just so you know, it’s cheaper than Coachella.

We need more protest songs. All over the world.

There is power in music and anyone who denies this isn’t listening. And to be honest that’s why leadership all over the world try to suppress it by limiting resources towards it.

What Christianity has done all over the world is just absolutely appalling (this is in direct reference to them forcing Indigenous Americans to assimilate , not sing or dance etc).

Singers need to realise that sometimes, they can’t write good songs and should really consider paying song writers.

Hegemonic Ideals

You know, I am always wondering whether most of us are living the lives our parents want for us and/or the life society wants us to live or what we want. The truth is that our decisions do not happen in a vacuum and therefore it is a tricky situation all around.

Hegemony.

That domesticity thing we do is a performance of femininity as prescribed by society. The things done so a man can pick you, so one can be chosen is a performance. And we do it because you’ve been told a man choosing you gives you validation as a human and a sense of worth.

The other day my mum was talking about how she has started using some of her special/good dishes instead of waiting for visitors and I was telling her how even that is a performance; leaving the best for other people instead of ourselves. Even when I watch house shows and see people talk about how they “love to host” I sometimes feel like that is seen as a requirement for life and therefore we perform it even if hosting causes us anxiety. I mean, I have been there. Never have I felt so settled as when I decided that I did not want people in my house.

And that is why some project onto people who are living their truth, who are bold enough to say that this is who I am and this is what I will or won’t do. It bothers us when people stand in their “no” or “yes” because they refuse to swayed by expectations.

In related news, I have been thinking about personality recently spurred on by a TikTok video that I watched. And most of what we consider personality is performance. I wrote about it briefly in my newsletter. Thanks for subscribing to it.

Addendum

Sometimes I feel like I am talking in circles but I think I am mostly working through my thoughts on this blog.

Are you truly living in the fullness of yourself?

The Lie of Romance

If there is one thing I completely agree with Alain de Botton about is that Romanticism needs to ummmm end.

But before I even go into that, let me say that we mostly like love the feeling and not love the reality of it all. We like the butterflies in the stomach nonsense. What Hollywood (and the philosophy of romanticism) has made us believe love should be.

Anyway

I was watching a True Crime documentary where the girlfriend of a convicted sex offender calls that man “romantic” because he wrote her letters. A SEXUAL DEVIANT. As if the fact that he is romantic should somehow mean something. He killed people Kayleigh, we don’t care what he wrote to you while in JAIL.

Romanticism is why we think in these romantic relationships, one has made amends because they brought flowers and chocolate instead of watching someone’s behaviour. It is why we think responding to texts is a bigger deal than it really should be. It is why we believe someone sharing inane details about their daily lives means they are emotionally open. It is why we put credence to ridiculous things like diamond rings and weddings. And most often than not, heterosexual relationships are better books than in real life, and that’s because women write romance books.

PS: I don’t care about your token good relationship, calm down.

Even astrology apps when talking about relationships focus on romantic over others which COME FUCKING ON!

And that is just part of the lie, isn’t it?

That focus on firstly, romantic relationships and secondly things that further capitalism (buying things to show affection for example).

I keep saying that I do not say all this to minimise the significance of romantic and/or sexual relationships but I do think we must think of the messaging out there a bit differently. I also want to be clear that companionship and marriage are not synonymous despite people wanting to act like it is.

And so let’s talk marriage because most often, the expectation is that a romantic relationship will lead to marriage. We must continue to ask ourselves why we are taught to look forward to marriage, to desire it even and also to want happiness and yet the two are at constant odds (especially women). And also, let’s not forgot the fact that a marriage is a government institution -which we don’t talk about enough.

And you know, despite years of seeing that this institution done one way doesn’t work but somehow we think we are the feneratjon that’s gonna do it better. And then we find ourselves in that cycle of deep hatred, discontent and anguish. A whole reimagination is needed.

I think beyond self awareness we have to accept how society and expectations thereof are ingrained in us. There are things we do thinking they are being done in self awareness but really, we are just doing what’s expected of us.

Are we valid, worthy if we aren’t “chosen“?

Is it what you desire or is it social conditioning?

Is it who you are or are you performing a role?

Who Am I? Random Things About Me

What song is in your rotation currently?

Not even gonna front, this is my best song of this year so far.

What’s the best feeling in the world?

Knowing you are going to have the best sleep ever. Like when you are about to sleep and know it’s gonna be good. And then the actual sleep. Sleeping.

Best vocalist in my opinion?

Always Luther. But current crop of musicians?

Gallant.

A random memory

The 1987 All African Games at Kasarani and we actually went. Have no pictures to prove this but we did. I was young but that is not the point.

Fox Drive In was the plan when we were kids especially when we moved to Thika Road. I really wonder what the story is with that.

An Out of Pocket opinion you have

People who cross the road under a bridge have a death wish. Do with that what you must.

Women who think they are special snowflakes and certain things won’t happen to them almost always end up having that thing happen to them.

Listening to things about your kids isn’t interesting to me (sometimes, not always).