By Siaka Cisse
You will be sedated at your doorstep. This will be after navigating a gruelling workday. So will this mark the cusp of you eating cereal and milk; instead of your sporadic stops at Jollof Chicken. On the floor will be your dear briefcase.
Out of habit, you will undo your necktie. It’s not like you fancy wearing the ‘so called’ formal clothes anyway. Especially the ‘chocking’ necktie. As long as they keep you ’employed’ and even at most ‘presentable’——that should not be an issue.
That particular insouciant aura about you will land you sluggishly on your couch. Like rain finding its way through, your hands will reach your socks and dismiss them from the job they do well—covering your feet. The lingering stench of the previous day’s sweat will dance through the day’s odour—mocking you.
Looking ever contradictory, will rest your fresh-looking feet on your brown rug. But you wouldn’t know that; your feet are the least of your concerns.
In your routine sequestering after work; your unwashed and putrid couch always house you and your idle thoughts. You have always thought it your favourite. However, your only brother, whose visits you invariably look forward to called you “weird”. He asked waspishly: “how can it be your favourite when it is the only couch in your sitting room? Favourite means most liked out of other options!”
“Why can’t anything be ‘favourite’ in the absence of competition? Why must competition take the grace out of being unique? The one thing everyone should look forward to.” You snicker at the inconsistency of your train of thought. You do not tell your brother this, but you always think of his obsession with details and precision somewhat rude. Pettily rude.
That familiar sound from your phone that never fails to command your attention will do its job. On your screen it will read: “I miss you baby.” Another one-night stand whom you thought ‘too needy’ and ‘very optimistic’ after you got what you wanted from her.
Sometimes you wonder if they could detect the libidinous appetite beneath your ‘sweet’ words—which only surfaced during pillow talk or when you get in the mood and try to take them home.
She will be left on read, per usual. This is not about her or the ones before her—you don’t even remember the ones you entertained the previous month.
The fact that your legs will rise on the wall slightly above your couch; head above shoulders and elbows perched on the cold tiles will mark the beginning of another highlight of your days’ escapades: TikTok.
The app that makes love to you in your Insomnia episodes. The app that makes you ‘escape’ your bleak life. The app that helps you ‘keep up’ with work. The reason you sent that one email to Frank instead of Franz. The app that also made you send your medical report in for that PhD programme in Paris, instead of your transcript. They accepted you, luckily. Remember: luckily.
The vehemence with which you scroll past the first 3 videos on your page will be hard to not be perceived ‘personal’. Personally, it brought you to your desired content.
Ever just as sure, your favourite content creator, Jato Ba from Nyankatang junction will show his entire set of teeth as he introduces himself—a routine practice.
“Yoo it’s your boy Jato Ba from Nyankatang junction, so today, I will be conducting a street ‘interview’. Stay tuned to be amazed. And don’t forget to give me a like and a follow!” You did all that months ago when you came across this ‘funny man’ of a creator who insists on calling himself a boy.
Since your brother mentioned the overlapping of Jato Ba’s teeth making him pronounce the “J” sound as “Ch”, hence saying “it’s your boy Chato Ba,” all the time. You always pay attention to that detail from your ‘notorious’ brother.
By this time, he will approach a girl who looks the youngest among the primary 6 students closing from
School. She will look about the same age group, as the grade 7 students you tutor on Saturdays and Sundays.
“yangi cool ahh?” Jato.
“Waw Mangi cool!” The girl, fidgety.
“So I have a question for you, are you an amphibian or a reptile?” Jato, very random. Very misleading. And even emptier with the suspenseful background sound effect.
Like a predator seeing its prey fall for his trap, he’ll hold his breath for the much-anticipated confused response from his prey (the girl).
“Amphibian!” She’ll say vacillating. Then a sudden videoclip of a man screaming and accentuating “Heeeeiii” will be flashed on the screen.
“Abaaaaa ki mo stupid!!” You’ll bellow out from
Your couch. More rage baiting than actually being annoyed. After a while, you’ll laugh and give up the pretense rage people wear to ‘look the part’ or be ‘palatable’.
“I think classification of living organisms is taught in primary 5. No it’s definitely primary 6. She should Know that! Hee wait. I am sure it’s properly taught in grade 8.” You’ll dwell on that thought. Missing the whole point. Being ignorant of the facts that this is beyond a biology lesson.
In your fragile part, you’ll be glad that you are not the one being recorded to be made fun of for the ‘entertainment’ of million unknown heads from the other ends of screens. Still, you’ll not think to imagine yourself in the child’s position.
Five minutes later, your 4th like on the TikTok street ‘interview’ videos will click a nerve. Would you have been able to answer such questions at her age? Forget the question. At her age, would you remember your own name if a random ‘grown’ man approached you with a mic and a whole camera crew; out of the blue talking about some ‘quick questions’? No.
Your self-regard will dismiss the questions, because: “Thank God that wasn’t me. So it doesn’t matter anyway.”
With people like you, Jato will never stop sucking mediocre ‘content’ out of everyone. After all, you all incentivise him for being ‘funny’!
Jato sees likes and follows when he targets kids who look off guard. One would expect him to know that even professionally trained teachers give a prior notice to their students before exams to allow for preparation; but if one begins to think of the reason he hunts vulnerable kids and make them look stupid in front of millions to earn popularity, it will click that his likes are foreign to critical thinking. Mere simpletons.
He doesn’t tell you, his audience, that he’s alien to the basic rules that govern sentence structure and the answers to even the simplest of questions. Without father google or mother ChatGPT, there would be no Jato.
The last video you watched by him, his caption claimed to ‘teach’ students and ‘make them study.” How paradoxical? Your shrunken brain even detected the inconsistency of that. He never corrects the kids afterwards. He never advises them to study. That would make his content ‘boring’. Even the audience only request for the part 2 of videos in which the students cry or stutter of utter paranoia.
In about 2 minutes, your phone’s battery will die. Now you will sit up. Was the viral video of little Kemo’s street ‘interview’ from the next house funny? You tutor him, you know he is too smart for his age. The Little Kemo whose results always float on top as best. The Kemo who knows how to spell rambunctious and Ubiquitous.
But you also saw the mic tremble in his grip in the live stream interview. He stuttered and couldn’t spell book. Book??? Jato and his crewmen saw the angst in his childlike tone, quivering. Somehow you managed to connect the dots and realised that you would have peed in your trousers in front of grown-ups feasting on you with big cameras, expensive lighting and heavy microphones. All the while, laughing down at you as though you were a poorly delivered joke at dinner table.
Your ‘grown’ self laughed anyway and commented the words “very funny” in the live stream.
Was it funny when he got bullied in school? Was it funny when he stopped talking and fell behind in academics? You wouldn’t answer either question. It’s for fools like you that dimwits like Jato seek validation from. He lacks the faculties to create even a single original genuine joke. Preying on others’ flaws isn’t humour. Humour requires intelligence quotient. Jato wouldn’t know that. And you wouldn’t let him know that. Your likes wouldn’t let him know that. But above all, the kids know. They pay the price—right through our algorithms.
