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One of the big challenges for Nigerians going into an internet-led future we do not control is understanding how to sift through information to detect falsehood and developing the emotional intelligence to recognise bad faith messaging disguised as "logic."
In other words, learning to understand the subtle difference between when the world is laughing *with* you and when it is laughing *at* you. We generally have a very basic sense of humour here, so we often conflate the two, thus making ourselves objects of global ridicule.
I went through the same struggle back in the day. Between 2008 and 2010, I got my news from Alex Jones/Prison Planet, David Icke and other conspiracy theorists. I believed Obama was the Antichrist and the "New World Order" was trying to plant slave microchips into every human.
It all sounds a bit silly now, but if you allow yourself get sucked into a Youtube/social media echo chamber led by non politically correct" people, you will convince yourself that you know something other people don't, while filling your head with utter nonsense.
It started innocently in 2008 with interest in "logical" voices like Sam Harris and Pat Condell. It soon graduated into Alex Jones and Glenn Beck. From the plausible-sounding 9/11 conspiracy theory, it graduated into stuff like "Annunaki" and Michelle Obama being transgender...
What rescued me from that particular sunken place was my love of sex. To meet girls, I needed to go out and socialise with people, and that forced me to take breaks from YouTube and go out into the real world from time to time. Without that, I don't know where it would have gone.
I also realised after a while that these "logical" voices all had a single narrative about non-white people (especially black people), women, gays etc and none of them was remotely positive. The black ones like Tommy Sotomayor and Candace Owens were actually the worst.
In response to this realisation (as young men do), I went to the other extreme and got sucked into another YouTube universe filled with Hotep Black Power types. I started joining those militantly pro-Black Facebook pages with names like 'Field Afrikan Refuge.'
I started changing my everyday language language to reflect my newfound truth. "I understand" became "Eye overstand," and other such mumbo jumbo. I became obsessed with Umar Johnson, Brother Polight and others like Yvette Carnell because they were all about that 'Black' stuff.
That carried on until I had a tiny falling out one day with a community member, and that led to me hearing things like "Your people still live in trees" from these supposedly woke, pro-Afrikan (with a 'K'!) types.
I realised I had simply moved from one bigoted space to another.
I realised I had simply moved from one bigoted space to another.
This realisation was magnified when Yvette Carnell came out with that "ADOS" thing and made it clear that her definition of 'black' had no space for people like me.
It was at this point that I stopped trying to mentally escape from Nigeria via an online community.
It was at this point that I stopped trying to mentally escape from Nigeria via an online community.
I was forced to accept that people do not build these YouTube universes and online communities for altruistic purposes. Alex Jones and his types weren't trying to expose some hidden truth - they were just racist right wing hucksters using human psychology to sell a product
Umar Johnson and his Blackity-Black typesw hom I spent hours and hours listening to were not genuinely interested in bettering the lives of 'black people.' They were just hustlers using controversial topics to get speaking engagements and sell merchandise - grifters.
Whether racist right wing nutcases or militant left wing black militants, they were all performing for an audience and I was not that audience. I was just a useful idiot dedicating huge amounts of time to ingesting their snake oil. Why am I bringing this up tonight?
Through this period, I was in the UK where broadband internet was fast and cheap. Internet access in Nigeria was expensive and slow. Thus, the process of self discovery I passed through a decade ago is only just happening now to many young Nigerians thanks to cheap 3G and 4G
It's hard not to notice a significant portion of young, internet savvy Nigerians trying to define themselves through membership of online communities - communities that they often know very little about. It is not harmless escapism. It is very dangerous.
The so-called 'Manosphere' is a good example of this. Whether it is the PUA types or MGTOW, Incel movement, Jordan Peterson, Ben Shapiro, Steve Molyneux, Lauren Southern or the seemingly harmless ones like PewDiePie, there is a VERY dark undercurrent behind these things.
None of these guys will openly say "We are part of an organised international white supremacist propaganda movement pushing dangerous conspiracy theories, racial tropes, lies and fake science."
But that community exists and it even has a 'style guide' https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2018/01/15/inside-the-daily-stormers-style-guide
But that community exists and it even has a 'style guide' https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2018/01/15/inside-the-daily-stormers-style-guide
The style guide emphasizes that all dangerous messages must be couched in "humour" and "satire" so that nobody can ever pin them down on their words. What you think of as internet "LOL culture" comes from the minds of some abhorrent people who *really* do not like you.
It might feel empowering and fun to be part of something that takes you away from Nigeria's depressing reality, but are you really part of it? Or are you a useful idiot? Are you the "I'm-not-racist-because-I-have-black-friends" black friend? Is that why they welcomed you?
Before the white supremacist Brenton Tarrant shot 50 people dead in a mosque in New Zealand this year, he published a manifesto outlining his belief in the messages being pushed out by these guys. Messages more and more internet savvy Nigerians now appear to subscribe to.
"Black Americans are lazy, stupid and unproductive." Where did you hear that message from and have it reinforced repeatedl? "Immigrants and liberals are destroying [insert Western country]." - Who put this message in your head? Why?
More importantly, is it in your interest?
More importantly, is it in your interest?
The world is at war and because we are not an information-positive society, we apparently didn't get the memo.
During wartime, the most important part of the effort is the information war. Whoever has no understanding of narrative will end up as roadkill.
During wartime, the most important part of the effort is the information war. Whoever has no understanding of narrative will end up as roadkill.
These ideologies and beliefs you are adopting - are they in your interests? If you call yourself a "libertarian" or a "socialist," do you understand the actual meaning of these terms? Do they suit your Nigerian reality? Or did they just sound inspiring on YouTube?
I'm practically a veteran of internet culture by Nigerian standards because I've been online for more than 2 decades. I saw when the mechanism of online discussion was hijacked by people with political aims in the early 2000s. It's been war since then even if we're not aware.
The internet is not what you think it is. It is not an instrument of entertainment, neither is it your friend. It is a tool of social and economic warfare. One of the fronts in this war is the ownership of minds. Do you own your own mind? Or does a YouTube "philosopher" own it?
I get it - we're people raised in the world's biggest Black country. We do not understand the entire concept of racism. We have mostly never experienced it, and we think it ended somewhere between Martin Luther King and the South Africa 2010 world cup.
I was like that too.
I was like that too.
I'm not saying "the world outside hates you, so stop being so goddamn gullible online" (even if it's tempting to say that). What I am saying is that we need to read and watch everything with a HUGE dose of skepticism.
As I always say, the world is a BIG place. Be careful!
As I always say, the world is a BIG place. Be careful!
Some months ago, I wrote about the effect that this internet radicalisation process had on people close to me. I STILL get hate mail for this article, which broke the CCN comments record. https://www.ccn.com/remember-lads-subscribe-to-pewdiepie-we-need-to-talk-about-how-domestic-terrorists-are-created-online
