Kenyans are keyboard warriors. There is no disputing that fact. We are most known for being the most vicious opponents when any other African country turns against us. We are also known for using the Internet to rally behind our political causes and see it through. We have proven to be a wondrous force when we band together for noble causes and use the wave of the Internet to move together in unison to achieve our goals.
However, one cannot help but wonder about the negative consequences of being such a force of nature online. We learn the power of our numbers and the power of our words, but like any other invention, we cannot help but fall into the abyss of its negative byproduct. We have used the Internet to publicly shame, mock, bully and take vengeance on people who have found themselves on the wrong side of the netizens.
The whole Internet has been buzzing about a young girl called Sheryll Gabriella. I don’t know Sherryll, and to be honest, I don’t care to know her. The first couple of posts I saw, I scrolled away mindlessly. I figured what the topic was about but I didn’t want my watching to contribute to whatever was going on. I also don’t care.
Now I don’t know how Sherryll’s nudes (or videos) or whatever it was that ended up online found itself there, and it is not a topic I care to research. However, I am very much against revenge porn. If it was posted online without her consent, then someone needs to be held accountable and go to prison! It is the only way to curb revenge porn.
But, if Sherryll herself posted the nudes on the Internet, then I’m also a big proponent of eff around and find out. Some of these young girls have no mentorship and often want to achieve fame by any means necessary. Everyone wants the level of fame that Kim Kardashian got off her sex tapes, but not everyone has Kris Jenner on their side.
While the response to the videos online is very much to be expected, what I did not expect was to wake up to certain trending topics. I did not imagine for the life of me that #Sim2 would refer to a body part. It is only after scrolling for a few minutes that I managed to gather what the hashtag referred to. And that many people were using the hashtag to refer to the young woman’s privates.
At the moment, I couldn’t help but wonder, “Are we turning into South Korea?” If you don’t know, South Korea is the world’s biggest toxic online bully. They bully their public figures in a way that makes the person commit suicide, run from the country or get ousted by whatever industry they are involved in. The reception of the football team after being knocked out at the Fifa World Cup is a clear indicator that they are quite toxic and very much into bullying people who ‘disappoint’ them.
Kenyans are nowhere near the level of toxicity that South Koreans are at, but seeing how millions of people were banded online to discuss a young woman’s private parts and mocking her left a bad taste in my mouth. Most of us are grown folks with jobs and families and should not be getting involved in such topics. Even if the girl put the information out there herself, then we have given her what she wants by giving her all that attention. Perhaps she is somewhere smiling at the way she is trending off the bad press. Now people like me who never knew her, know her.
