It is funny when you see Nigerian bloggers writing against other sectors like the movie and music industry as being substandard and lacking the quality to compete with those in other parts of the world.
I once read in blogs the many flaws of Nollywood, which include a ghost looking left and right before crossing the road, making one to wonder what such ghost is afraid of. If he should get knocked down by a vehicle, would the ghost die again?
Blogger are now the greatest fear of every top entertainer in the country, they make him great and they also make the world see what he does in the dark and because of the way things are today, it takes just few minutes for a story to blow around the country, because ‘bloggers’ are ever ready to do their job.
People raise their shoulders up calling themselves bloggers without knowing a single thing about the title they have chosen. They do not want to know a single thing about what blogging is about, they just call themselves ‘bloggers’, do what they do and that is all.
According to Oluyomi Adegboye, Managing Editor MOBILITY.ng, a blogger is someone that writes a blog. A blog is an online journal that a writer can use to share his ideas, thoughts, expertise, or interests. Therefore, a blogger is someone that writes his ideas and thoughts online. Note the personal touch to that definition. Blogging is about self-expression. Bloggers write about their lives, their experiences, their expertise, their passions, and their opinions, and the personal touch is always present.
This definition is far from what we see in Nigeria today, a blogger has suddenly become the owner of a domain who waits for newspapers and other websites to post material for them to copy. The best blogger is the one that copies most and so only few are content creators.
This supports the belief that most bloggers will never exist without the ‘Ctrl + C’ keys on their computers.
Only few bloggers in the country can sit in front of their computer to write three lines, majority would rather copy and edit what someone else has already written. The funniest part being that some bloggers use their phones to do their thing, they have never blogged with a computer.
The greatest headache in the ‘blogging industry’ if there is anything like that, is the proliferation of blogs, although Mr Adegboye said in his description that a blogger must not be a journalist, how can someone dealing news not have a single idea of how to produce or manage it. And his definition, which still stands as one of the best online did not say that a blogger is the persons that copies virtually other people’s ideas to past in their blogs.
He wakes up every morning in search of top stories in the country, be it politics, entertainment or crime he just has to update his site even when his slogan reads ‘…the entertainment hub of the nation’.
He knows nothing about libels, he knows nothing about the ethics of what he is doing all he knows is he must do it, even post more materials than the original sources without a single credit to the originators of the stories.
Thanks to the music industry, where hundreds of songs are being released online daily for people to download. The press release of these songs have finally become the only original content most bloggers have ever written, and while some try to be as original as they could, others copy a previous release just to change the name of the artiste and the title of the song in question. This makes anyone posting plenty of these songs look like a fool because he has succeeded in telling his visitors that they cannot differentiate these materials which has just the names in them as their differences.
I know this will look like I am attacking my family but they will have to understand that if anyone can come on TV and call himself a blogger, there must be dignity in the profession. It must not be a title anyone can wake up and start wielding because he is free to own a domain and post anything he likes.
Music bloggers will make up 80% (assumption) of the total number of bloggers in the nation a reason why some top blogs in the country have even deviated into blogging music, which is also why everyone believes that a blogger must post music on his site in Nigeria.
In Nigeria when bloggers post a title like ‘Jim Iyke spotted with Nadia Buari’, you will see a picture of Jim and Nadia posing with two fingers and well composed smile. How can people posing with well composed smiles be spotted on the same picture they posted themselves on Instagram, Twitter, Facebook?
Because most of us care more about posting contents to nature of the contents, we go on posting anything just the way they are.
These days, entertainers take pictures, cook up a press release and send to bloggers to throw online and because no one wants to anger such celebrities, these materials go online unchanged, unedited, just the way the entertainer wants it with nothing to do with the idea of the blogger.
The engagement of Paul Okoye to his girlfriend, Lola Omotayo showed that no Nigerian blogger thinks, till date, no one talked about the source of the picture, and the only comment from Paul was, ‘She said Yes’, showing that Paul actually took the pictures and sent to a certain blogger or posting them on his Instangram page for bloggers to start their gossips.
In USA, we see what paparazzi do, but in Nigeria, na entertainers de take pictures send give bloggers.
You’ll see a headline, ‘Beyonce spotted leaving a hotel’ and it will be obvious that Beyonce was never aware that someone was taking such pictures of her, something we have really lacked in Nigeria.
Some bloggers cannot write a straight English sentence, they want to write a line as if they are rapping. They send out lines like ‘dope ass song’, ‘a sick jam’, ‘illest dj ever’ and the likes of it, using street language as if everyone online is a ‘street reader’.
Bloggers should know that the internet has a wide audience and not for a certain set of people, chat words like: bn for been; luk for look; luv for love and the likes of it should be avoided because while you are professionally presenting a case, you have to do it well. And people call us a joke when we post these things. Unless Nigeria will be a country where people who are not informed handle information.
‘Bloggers’ really need to step up in their games so that being a blogger will not become a sin in the country, because soon the people we have criticized will make mockery of our weakness in a way that no one would publicly wish to be addressed as a blogger.
Just because there is no regulatory body does not mean that anyone is free to do anything anytime he likes. Bloggers will thus end up being ‘gods’ that live in all the sins they execute people for, but everyone should understand that the days of ‘godship’ will not last forever because a ‘God’ will surely come someday to pass the same judgment, on the ‘gods’.
Blogging is an interesting thing for anyone with the passion for sharing his ideas and thoughts with the world; we must keep it that way.
