Nigeria: The Celebrity Cult

20 February 2018
opinion

I do not want to get lost in a definitional quagmire between fame and celebrity. Some people may think that there is really no difference between them. Others think the line is very, very thin. Yet some others may think that it is a distinction without a difference. Whatever you think, keep it to yourself.

My business today is the specie of homo sapiens called Celebrity. I have chosen to adopt Daniel Boorstin's definition of celebrity as "a person who is well known for his well-known-ness." Those who belong to this club come mainly from the performing arts, sports, beauty pageantry and related fields. They are musicians, dancers, actors, actresses, beauty queens, bloggers, social media activists, OAPs (on air personalities), masters of ceremonies, comedians and many others whose vocation share the same territorial boundary with the above named. But as is customary in Nigeria some hustlers who are probably denizens of yahoo-yahoo-ism are putting their feet in the door seeking to be recognized as celebrities. Celebrities all seem to have their social media platforms - Twitter, facebook, Instagram - on which they strut their stuff. They post regularly the pictures of themselves in various degrees of undress, pushing out their buttocks or bosoms so that we all can see that they have them. Some of these things that they flaunt are enhanced by the gift of technology. Let us thank them all the same for the favour. Some of them regale us with the lurid tales of their wives' or husbands' infidelities and of their fights with or flights from their enemies in their lines of business.

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