Pimped and Nothing

It is a lot easier to become a celebrity these days, because of social media, one is able to connect easily and faster to a large group of people. Most of them are just crazy, doing things that are unsafe, uncomfortable and irrational simply because they can. At an early age, I started admiring the roles that young women in the various pageantries in Ghana play, I admired the way they are able to display the beautiful Ghanaian culture and how they speak English and get their audience to listen to all the things they do especially on stage. I also looked at the many television hosts and hostesses and told myself I was going to be like one of them one day. I started writing letters (letter writing was more common then) to some of these people I looked up to as role models while I was still in basic school. I never received any reply though, maybe the letters never got to them or they got to them but they did not reply. Maybe too, they replied but the replies never got to me. 

A celebrity is a famous person, especially in sports and entertainment, or one who is well-known for a particular talent. They can be singers, actors, bloggers, fiction writers, chefs, models, humanitarians and so on. How does one become a celebrity? First of all, one

needs to know which area or field they want to be known in, after that there should be constant practice to be good at the area, as practice makes perfect. Then comes the difficult part, one needs to be creative, and for me I think this is one thing our celebs are missing. Being creative does not mean you cannot rely on the works of other people, but you need to add your own flare. What do you want people to remember you for? It is also important to study celebrities in your chosen field and learn from them, locate people who can help you to achieve your goals. Simply being a celebrity is not going to take you anywhere, for most people, they work for a 15 minute fame and expect it to last a lifetime.

Being a celebrity in my country Ghana is however different, and way easier. All you have to do is to just “misbehave” by “nakeding” yourself around or insulting people, upload on social media and you become famous. But if you do the right things for the right reasons, no one will ever notice you. This is especially true for females than males. Most of our ce

lebs in Ghana are not even aware that they are role models, so they dress anyhow, speak anyhow and act anyhow. Who is in charge of regulating what we put on social media? What breaks my heart is the way most of them are living fake lives, forcing us to believe life is all rosy, when that is actually not the case. They portray what we all see to be the “ideal lifestyle” by way of dressing, speaking, dieting, even walking and we just follow them blindly. It is good to learn from other people but we must not lose ourselves trying to be like other people. A lot of young people are deceived to believe that life is all about dressing up, looking good and posting on social media. There are a lot of things they do not show us, the tears, disappointments, betrayals, fear and heart breaks.

Here are a group of young people who are following a bunch of celebrities who do not even know the followers exist. Sometimes, when I go through the Instagram, Facebook and Snapchat walls of some of these people, I shake my head at some of the replies our celebrities give to their followers who comment on stuff they post. Celebrities are people we all admire and look up to, it is however sad the way some of them behave, speak and

respond to issues. Sometimes, when there is an important issue for discussion, these people speak to the issue and you ask yourself whether it is really the best response they can ever give. They are all over hating and insulting each other on social media and we are so committed to them, we get so blinded even when they are doing the wrong things, we support them and justify the wrong. If for nothing at all, for respect for all the people who follow you, please choose your words and act carefully.

We follow their various pages on social media, some have even opened accounts for their babies that are just a few months old which we are following and liking and commenting on, still most of them do not respect us. Imagine one day all of us who follow you decide to unfollow or decide not to like any of your post or react to anything you post (this will never happen anyway, some of us are die-hard fans). Most of them are busy making their money and going places, and we their fans are cheering and fighting for them anyway.  The more they get people to talk about them, whether for a good or bad reason, they become popular and make more money anyway. one thing I find difficult to understand is how our celebs want to do everything, you cannot even point at

what talent exactly they want to be noted for. You have one person who is into acting, singing, modelling, and so on, this does not help them to stay focused and be a master of one, just like Jack, who is into all trades and cannot be a master of any.

Even though some celebrities organise hangouts occasionally or do some give always, I think it is about time they show more appreciation to their fans, they can do better. One of my friends narrated how she “suffered” before one of the celebrities finally recognised her efforts and liked her comment. According to her, she had tagged this celebrity in most of her posts, shared the celeb’s posts time and again, sent her private messages all to no avail. Then one day she commented and her comment was given a like, she had to share the good news with us. Do your fans have to go through all this to get recognised? We have instances where some of these celebs have surprised their fans, paid fees for some of their fans, drawn people’s attention to an issue facing a fan to solicit support for her or him.

Personally, I have sent private messages to some of our Ghanaian celebrities, some read and do not respond, some do not even open the messages at all. It is understandable that they are busy and cannot respond to everyone but I think they should find a way of handling this other than ignoring their fans who keep bombarding their inboxes with messages. They may say they are busy, that is undisputable, but they are able to respond to the comments of their colleague celebs, maybe one day we will all get busy and will not be able to react to the things they post. Next time you want to send a comment to

your celebrity friends, you might want to think about it, if it is worth the try. And here we are, always hailing them, we have friends who are struggling to make it in life, they have started small businesses and created pages on social media, we will not share their pages, like or even share them. These are people we are living with, people we know, but sadly we do not support them. However, we are able to do more for celebs we do not even know, sometimes, buy airtime to vote for them when they are in a competition. I am not against you supporting any celeb, but before you go into any celebrity craze,  ask yourself if it is worth.

If not for anything, our celebrities should bear in mind that some young people are looking up to them and may need their assistance to achieve their dreams. Imagine someone giving up on their dreams because you did not give them a reason to push towards the dream. Some of our celebrities are not also truthful to their fans, for instance, instead of telling their fans it is important to build network and keep in touch with their friends, they are always telling them to learn hard and pray because it

is prayer and hard work that got them to where they are. Does it mean we are not praying and learning hard already? We hear this all the time, I think they should be able to tell us something better than just pray and work hard. Can they tell us how to expand our intellectual horizon on how to create wealth, how to build network, manage people and probably how to build sustainable businesses? The reason they are doing so may be because they don’t want other people to know the secret of their success, so that they will be the only celebs forever.

The part that kills me is the way we can mobilise ourselves and organise money to get presents for our celebrities. We have poor friends and other people in our communities who are in dire need of our assistance but we do not even recognise that, we can organise money to get expensive presents for people who can get themselves all the presents they so wish. So I figured out that the best way to get their attention is to say negative things about them, insult them or do something that will drag their name into the mud and trust me, you will hear from them faster than you can ever imagine. In fact, you will get their full attention. Maybe they fear that someone will steal their shine or block their shine, but that can never be the case because everyone is unique, and no-one can take another person’s place, when you put someone in another’s place, they will still play the roles differently. My dear celebs, we are not after your shine in any way, we are just genuine people who love you and are happy for your achievements, so please stop treating us like

we are competing with you. A kind word or comment from a celeb to her or his fans will not take so much from them. Just some amount of data and energy, remember your fans may even be using more data and energy to support you, liking, commenting, following and sharing your thousand and one posts on social media. Maybe one day, we will take the “beggars strike” and let you react to your posts by yourselves, then maybe you will realise how important our little contributions to your posts mean. No hard feelings and personal sentiments against anyone, just drawing your attention to a harmless issue. CHEERS!!!