Whenever many people see the name Big Brother Naija anywhere, especially on social media, they cringe, they get irritated, they feel disappointed in whoever has posted such. This is clearly understood, because they can not just fathom or see reason why anyone will “waste” energy and time posting or discussing a reality show with no economic importance whatsoever.
Yes, it is absolutely normal to feel that way, especially when you consider the excesses displayed on the show sometimes or most times by the helpless housemates. However, your feelings may not align with that of several other people. Chief among such people are the organizers of the show that have invested billions of Naira, engaged hundreds of skilled young men and women, and sacrificed many sleeps to creatively design and sustain such a hugely successful show in a community that is as conservative as ours. While the organizers are the direct beneficiaries and can be easily identified, the project also boast of countless indirect beneficiaries, asides the House Mates.
In the media world, right from the beginning of time, attention is a great asset. As a matter of fact the level of your success in the media world is directly proportional to the size of attention you can garner and gather. For a long time, the yardsticks for measuring attention is vague and not very specific, until some few years ago when social media came to life. One of the many revolutionary effects of social media is blessing us a with a definite criteria to measure attentions you can gather as a brand.
Followers, likes, comments, impressions, engagements and the likes are now specific yardsticks to measure how much attention you have or you can possibly generate with your brand. People now get endorsement deals, get paid, get hired, become a celebrity and even get employed based on the number of social media followers they have. Now you understand why people, especially young people will go to any length, do all sorts on social media, so they can get the desired and the rich-in-demand attention.
Realizing this is the present day reality, young people now keep vigil all night and wake up daily racking their head to come up with ideas and contents they can serve on social media, so they can get attention, and earn themselves the title of an INFLUENCER. When next you see a comedy skit, a dance video, a twerk video, a cross dresser, an annoying post, a give away etc, just know this is another young man or woman trying to get attention. The unfortunate and sad reality is that most times, appropriate contents or better still morally sound content, does not give the desired size of attention like the ones we tag inappropriate and morally bankrupt. It is unfortunate but the truth!
Almost every young man and woman out there now are striving to become an Influencer. They want to have fame, money and all the good things in between. To achieve this status is not a child’s play, and believe me it is not as easy as you may think. However, the social media world in its bid to make life as simple as possible have created a relatively lower class of Influencers, called Micro Influencers and most of these micro influencers can be found on the micro blogging social media platform called Twitter.
Twitter is globally known for having some of the most cerebral and at the same time the most savage influencers. I personally know hundreds of young men and women that will give anything to become an influencer on Twitter, but they’ve not been able to have the desired breakthrough. To these people and their counterparts on Instagram and Facebook, Big Brother Naija is the best thing that can ever happen. It’s like all what they have been toiling for, packaged in a parcel that they can take delivery of within the space of 10 weeks.
Big Brother Naija trends on a daily basis, with thousands and millions of tweets daily. Many of these hustlers have changed their handle on social media or open a totally different account solely dedicated to BBN updates, simply because million of people in and outside the country are online scouting for constant per minute updates. So these influencers know that the more juicy and correct update they can give the more followers they will gain within this 10 weeks. So most of the influencers and influencers wanna be have down tools for every other thing to concentrate on Big Brother Naija for the next 10 weeks, in order to boost their status as an influencer, build accounts to be sold after the show and much more. It’s like a professional going for a 10 week course, a training, a workshop, a pilgrimage with the hope and belief that they can transform their fortunes and elevate their status with this once in a year golden opportunity.
Many influencer understands this fact, but of course there are hundreds of thousands of young men and women also devoting their entire life to BBN in the next coming weeks, without a proper understanding of what the real game is all about. Those ones are just suffering from oder pressure and catching cruise.
So before you give yourself heart attack and migraine trying to decipher what they see in Big Brother Naija, know that there are so many things they are seeing directly or indirectly, rightly or wrongly!
Welcome to the new world!
This article is written by Afouda Samuel, a Media Practitioner and a Lawyer!