Just like a typical game of numbers, bloggers have taken the quest for traffic to a different level by mostly taking the side of sad or bad news.
With my record as a writer, someone can actually quote where I said in the article, ‘Entertainers: The terms and conditions they forget’ that “This is a plain truth which I will tell every entertainer that no matter how much people love you, they will be the first to open links to stories that say bad about you”. This will surely remain one truth no one can ever change in the industry as well one of the terms and conditions anyone vying for a top spot in the entertainment industry will have to accept.
Why a mixture of wrongs? It is so because in Nigeria, we mostly cross the limits for everything we learned to do from the west. We often abuse the ethics of whatever we do and in most cases, quarks take up professional titles, flaunting themselves more than the real people.
A country where a mechanic and bricklayer call themselves engineers, a country where ordinary drug sellers handle prescriptions and are often referred to as doctors by their customers. It is simply a country where waywardness is never wrong and gone are the days when Don Williams’ I believe in love made a single sense “…that right is right and left is wrong, that north and south can’t get along, that east is east and west is west; and being first is always best”
Nothing is right or wrong anymore, the single principle has become anything that is worth doing, is worth doing well. Anything that fattens your bank account, is worth doing well.
The quest for traffic can often make a blogger do things, and for sure we have seen it in the way certain celebrities enjoyed funny privileges like having their meaningless selfies blogged on numerous platforms.
The disadvantage has been seen in the blogging of artistes’ full album and while the readers complained of the meaningless posts about these celebrities, they have their fair share of the complaints when their full albums and private affairs are blogged.
Both complaints are products of desperation and we all know it.
In February when my bosom friend, Prince Noel Tochukwu Unegbu was murdered in Owerri, I asked myself if he was really worth all the publicity his death received. Some blogs looked like they were fighting for justice, but the truth is that they were fighting for traffic.
After the burial of this young man, no one has ever written a single line to ask why Imo State Police command is yet to say who killed him, even when the alleged killers were paraded by the same police.
Upcoming entertainers have actually seen how much they are loved by bloggers in Nigeria. A simple news about them can only appear on 80% of entertainment and news blogs in the country if the title says the entertainer is dead and it makes a better news when the entertainer died a mysterious death.
Death news has turned out to be most selling news in Nigerian entertainment media industry and when I go through search engines to see how a certain story had blown, I see blogs I have never heard of finding a top stop on the search result because a fellow has died.
Because of traffic, we end up making celebrities at death. Who would be happy to appear on the major blogs in the country at death? I am sure no one would want that and if nothing is done to cub this trend, entertainers might start faking their own death just for fame. That would be a wonderful publicity stunt.
I have often seen radio presenters scouting for songs by a dead artistes, just to give a worthy tribute to an artiste they would have turned down if he had come alive without money. This is so wrong and devilish.
We are supposed to be making new celebrities, not killing them. This is a mixture of wrongs, the way we take matters of their death so serious but delete mails that would help in promoting them.
My prayer is that we all see with our eyes when blogs and newspapers will publish our stories free of charge; when magazines will book appointment for us to grant them interviews; this gesture will never be a gift of tribute in Jesus name, Amen.
Through this article, I call on bloggers, newspapers, radio and TV stations in Nigeria and entire Africa to do whatever they can to support the ‘hustles’ of upcoming entertainers, because these recent happenings are surely scary to them.
We can actually support these guys and perhaps we could make our own celebrities rather than scouting for bad/sad news about them just to gain traffic.
Everyman will surely die someday and if entertainers are men they will surely get their share. However, we must not make it look like we are always waiting on their death all the time just to have a hard news, we can actually create our own stories and make our readers happy.
Prince Noel had it done for him and just few days ago, it was Cynthia Jonah aka Cynthomania. I wonder if the likes of Linda Ikeji ever did any story on her when she was alive, but her death proved to be a hard news for all.
For every upcoming entertainer reading this, you need to say a prayer to whatever deity you believe in. Tell him you don’t want to make headlines when you are dead. Say the prayer with faith because you need to be alive when your fans will be telling you congratulations not RIP.
Chinedu Hardy Nwadike, writes from Owerri, Imo State. chikinow@yahoo.com, 08038704454
