Namaste Gen Z!
It’s been two weeks but it feels like two years.
My people! What’s good? How’s the harmattan resurgence treating everyone? I personally am mildly irritated by it. This is like that time you think you’ve moved on from your ex only for them to randomly text you one night and the next thing you’re in an entanglement.
Anyway, while everyone was getting loved up last Sunday—which was Valentine’s Day—I finally moved back to hostel. It’s definitely one of my worst days this month because the day I moved in I had no light, water, or girlfriend. But we thank God that two out of those three things have changed [guess which one is still the same].
Moving back to hostel has been quite the hassle, everything is just more difficult and stressful, but during this time I got to watch Namaste Wahala on Netflix. This was a much anticipated film and from the trailer you could tell that it was going to be the kind of cliche film that we would enjoy for its easiness, but was I in for a shock. The movie somehow found a way to fail my already low expectations. I won’t talk about it in depth here because I have a review coming out on Film Cred before Tuesday [follow me on Twitter if you would love to read it] but I would talk about specific moments in the film that I am obsessed with for all the wrong reasons.
In the first scene, you hear the theme song in the background as the main characters go jogging on the beach [a lot of questions about this but let’s move on] and that, my people, is what I’m stuck on. That theme song has a certain verve to it, a certain jenny san quan, it just makes you want to move your hips as the lyrics “Me I no dey like wahala, I no want no drama, Namaste Wahala” are sung. It’s literally the only good thing about this movie and I will be thinking about it and screaming it out at random times.
Another thing is that if the product placement in that film was any more glaring, somebody would have given me a bottle of Coke through the screen. There was a bottle of Coke at the most random scenes, doing nothing for the story and just mildly irritating me. Other product placement culprits include Sterling Bank and Chocolate City but Coke was the most glaring and annoying.
As a side note, I think K10 tweets are funnier than whatever dialogue he had in that film and I wish Nigerian films had better writers.
During the week, Zikoko decided that Nigerian Twitter wasn’t chaotic enough and decided to start a generational war between Gen Z and millennials by asking Gen Z what they thought about millennials. This led to some of the funniest tweets I’ve seen in a long time, like this one about how Gen Z pray or this one about Gen Z marrying based on Zodiac signs or the one where Paystack cofounder, Ezra Olubi, caught a stray bullet in the war.
It was a hilarious day on the bird app and also a somewhat reflective day for me. I don’t think there’s any generation that’s ever satisfied with the previous generation’s work, values or ethics; it’s almost a right of passage to drag the previous generation even. Some time ago, there were a lot of articles about millenials killing the economy and what not, pitching them against Boomers, but now this has shifted gradually to Gen Z, pitching us against millennials. To be honest, millennials can get it any time, but one thing I will acknowledge is that these things are more nuanced than we might think them to be. A lot of movements we have now were pioneered by the older generations and Nigerian millennials have honestly had it rough in a country that is constantly creating new ways to frustrate you. And I hope that in all this we are not creating any stigma around getting old.
I hope you all have an awesome week and that everything you want falls into place for you. Looking forward to hearing from you.
What this newsletter is watching...
I’ve already talked about Namaste Wahala and I also rewatched To All The Boys I Loved Before P.S I Still Love You. I am enamoured by the chemistry between Peter and Laura Jean and the general softness of the teen romcom genre they have created.
What this newsletter is listening to...
I finally started listening to Joeboy’s latest project. I haven’t finished it yet but I really like the first track, Count Me Out. There’s a merging of a violin and clapping that makes for very good listening as his voice croons along.
What this newsletter is thinking about...
I have exams coming up and that is all I’ve been thinking about please.