You Didn’t Ask But Here’s What I Think
Welcome, and please maintain social distancing.
If you follow me on Twitter—which you should, my tweets are either horny or intelligent, no in between—you’ll see that I’ve changed my display name to ‘Jeff Mugo’. Now, the inspiration behind this is that I recently watched a 5 minute clip of the BBC African Eye documentary about the Kenyan private investigator, Jane Mugo. And never have I been equally speechless and full of things to say about a particular video.
First of all, is everything okay at the BBC African Bureau?
Second, is everything okay in Kenya?
The video manages to get more absurd as each minute goes by leaving you laughing in confusion and wondering when HBO is adapting her life story. About two minutes into the video, Jane—who is a private detective and a also a social media star [she contains multitudes, I know]— shows us where some of her hidden cameras are kept, and that has to be either the most confident thing in the world or the dumbest, you chose. Later, her guards are whipped before getting a plate of food and one of them says “There’s no pain, you have to endure the pain”. That, my people, has become my life philosophy.
Anyway, I need Jane Mugo to find me a valentine because it seems only her can do that.
In other news, I have—against my own will—learnt about the stock market because of the whole GameStop thing. Now, I cannot explain what I’ve learnt to you all, but just know, deep within me, I have some knowledge of the stock market. What I do know is that many people are projecting saviour status on the mostly already rich people that are buying the stocks. These people will not save us, they are not doing it to “destroy capitalism”, it is all for personal gain and, honestly, that’s alright. Just don’t praise them as some saviours of the masses or whatever. And yes, that includes Elon Musk.
While everyone was putting their heads on people’s shoulders in the much appreciated #SilhoutteChallenge that swept Twitter, I took a gander [who the hell still says gander] at Davido’s video for his hit single, The Best featuring Mayorkun and boy, do I have THOUGHTS. Davido stans, please stop reading here.
What in the Karate Kid Samurai Jack Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon was that video?
There's already such a causal reduction of Chinese culture to just aesthetics in media, Western Media especially, and this video did nothing but perpetuate that reduction. I was talking with a friend about this video and she said, “The thing with Nigerians engaging with other cultures is that we're very disrespectful about it.” I don’t know if it’s just a Nigerian thing, but I agree.
Uproxx wrote about the video, “The concept also gives them both the opportunity to dress in ceremonial garb and display the similarities between Asian and African cultures while paying homage to the former.” Now I ask, what similarities between African and Asian culture did they display? How did they pay homage to Asian culture? Maybe this video is an indictment of the general way we engage art as Nigerians: surface level and devoid of analysis.
I’m going to stop here before somebody asks me if my father is rich, but I hope you all have an amazing week ahead. I’m sure I won’t because school is resuming and that, in general, is bad vibes.
What this newsletter is watching.
I’ve been slowly rewatching Modern Family and I am reminded again why I love this show. Definitely a must watch if you like funny, feel good TV. Also, ignore all the weird racial jokes in the early seasons.
What this newsletter is listening to.
Rosalía has a new song out with Billie Eilish that I have hit replay on so many times. The song is an ethereal blend of their voices and has a last line that will leave you pondering. I’m also listening to Ayra Starr’s debut EP a lot, especially the Memories song which has this nostalgic feel to it that I love.
What this newsletter is thinking about.
I’ve always wondered what made me talk to people less even though I missed them a lot and then I saw a tweet that talked about how communication with people you miss a lot is a painful reminder of why you miss them so you avoid it. That tweet—even though it doesn’t capture the whole perspective of the issue–has been on my mind a lot this week.
Thank you for reading this far...
So, here’s the thing. Against my better judgement, instead of going for therapy, I am starting a newsletter.
*This is where you applaud me.
I’ve tried this in some capacity before but didn’t get past the planning stage because of a lot of reasons not limited to me forgetting I created a Substack account. [Am I even allowed to mention Substack here?]
But this time it’s different. Three times a month, you’ll hear my opinions and thoughts about the most random things: a book, a film, a viral video, a Twitter trend, my med school struggle, or even a random line spoken by Zendaya in Euphoria that I will be obsessed with at the time. In the chaotic style of this newsletter, I might even throw in a short story once in a while to spice things up.
So, join me in trying this again. Read about my obsessions and my faux deep analysis of trends and culture and don’t hesitate to share your thoughts with me if you have any. I’ll reply almost immediately because this newsletter is marginally more important than whatever med school exam I will be writing.
Welcome once again and I hope you enjoy this time with me.
P.S Did I mention I was a med school student? Oh. Okay.