There's a lovely human on this TL who did a turning-30 birthday post, and let me tell you Maina, there was absolute chaos in her replies.
Since one of the hats I wear is researcher/professional question asker, I went to see what insights there might be among the shambles.
/Thread

A few preliminaries:
- I won't link back to her/tag that post here: it is not as relevant as what there is to learn about our society from the samples
- One day we should have a conversation about how even on the TL, there can and should be fumigation and social distancing

I had all intentions of drawing a graph, because visualised data can be very powerful to help unpack and analyse information. But it is Saturday and my boss has a deliverable.
So I sampled and categorised by wider theme, and even just from that, there were MANY wild findings.

I classified the replies as either good (compliments and such) OR problematic (anything that was written to pour soil on the birthday post).
I want to start with the problematic ones, which fall under several (actually, 10. Yes, !) broad categories re. primary reference.

I. AGE: Far and away one of the most popular. There were several diagnoses of and references to menopause, and deserving honourable mention is "dentists can't treat menopause" which for Swahili speakers was perhaps intended to be funny.
(Editor's note: )

It may seem odd to some that the idea of menopause is held over women like a spectre in the exact same patriarchal dispensation where older mothers/women are allegedly accorded a sprinkling of respect because of age. But, the own-goals strategy there is already public knowledge.

Some other mentions in that thematic area were the idea of "mileage", and another ominous reminder of the "law of diminishing returns."

II. Reproduction/Marriage: This was one of the most diverse, re. language used.
One elaborate, metaphorical meme from there is here below:

Others included:
- you are no longer single, but unmarried
- tafuta mbegu mummy
- but can you be a good mother
- this would be better if you were a virgin
I couldn't really draw a conclusion: the chaos was truly multidirectional.
Imagine being told this on your birthday.

III. Looks: Everything here was completely unoriginal - focus on particular body parts with unsavory words to accompany. Another day on the net for women.
The truly notable ones went under compliments to refute them, and there were enough of those to legit be their own category.

IV. Insults under compliments: These could be divided further into
a) insulting the original post (on someone saying "you're beautiful!" the comment would be the equivalent of "stop lying lol")
b) insulting other people not present (one was "married women who have jiachiliad")

(I'd made reference to the own-goals strategy above.)

V. Singleness - one was "you must be lonely and depressed"

VI. Hoe/Body Count: Again, garden variety slut shaming, use of concepts relating to body count. Again, typical women-on-the-webs stuff.

The last 4 categories were very interesting.
VII. Stop Recruiting Others - a whole group exhorted her not to lie to other girls, confuse other girls, or "drag them into the pit" (?). There was also my favourite "you are bankrupt internally."
WHAT
Is there a T shirt, because

This category also included variations of "you must be regretting ", and "deep down things are different than this picture".
The evergreen "women are their own worst enemies" also, which was a surreal, thrilling thing to say to someone who is happy with herself on her birthday.

VIII. Advice and philosophy - was the most Kenyan of them all. (Because of our 8-4-4 traumas, maybe? A lot was rhetorical:
- we all have different tastes in life
- respect each other
- women over 30 make better decisions
- who am I to disagree ()
- discussions about football

The most odd one was "did you invest in a business or an education, or just break other women's marriages".
It was perhaps an insight of the speaker that those three options present paths to a similar outcome. Who knows?

IX. Combinations: This was for the multimedia practitioners, who found a way to weave different categories together, such as age/singleness/looks, or recruiting/hoe, etc.

X. Other/Miscellaneous- defying genre. My favourite was "you have hit the wall", with no further elaboration

Others under "miscellaneous":
- things about golddiggers
- the Bible (specific reference to Abraham and Sarah for no apparent reason)

When I tell you that comment thread was wild, it was WILD.

On to COMPLIMENTS, then we conclude, because we must reach beyond this hellscape

The compliments were so hype ! Mainly from girls and women (from the names on the profiles, and it goes without saying the demos and gender distribution of the preceding). A lot were either welcoming her to 30 or looking forward to it, and clap backs/solidarity against the BS.

The men offering compliments ranged among
- taking notes on her replies as an example for daughters ()
- live your life sis
- 30 is young, enjoy
- enjoy and give thanks
- 30 suits you
- the inferiority complexes in these comments can pay off our China debts ()

Honourable mention goes to "truly, you don't need a man" coming from a man.

The rest were the digital equivalent of catcalls, which I categorised as "chaotic neutral" simply because it wasn't an overt insult yet.
ALL THIS on her BIRTHDAY.
MY GOD.

This one post and those mentions is just one post of many. One a day in the life for her, and soooooo many other women and vulnerable, marginalised populations online, because the post went up yesterday. The onslaught, however, is NONSTOP.

If I had done a proper graph, we'd have been able to properly see the layers in the categories of insults and misogynies.

We'd also have seen the ratio of insults to compliments (for every single kind word, there were roughly 4 or more insults).
On her birthday.

The insults had more than 6 or 7 examples each, and this is just my sampling. There's even more examples in my notes that I didn't share.
Let that sink in.

There's misogynist intentionality in the language that is usually used on women online, to shame appearance, project anger, insult them, "put them in their place", "drag them down a peg or two".
We know this already. But it bears repeating.

It's just distancing themselves from women's oppression and powerlessness, or use it to prop themselves up. Bullying.
Men do it, and many women with them to dominate other women.
Light skin women do it to darker ones.
Cis het women do it with queer GNC and trans folk.
Etc, etc

That one birthday post can generate such vitriol about her reproductive intentions, her body, her relationship status, her sex life, and many more things which are really none of the public's business? It should really give us pause.

And this is actually pretty benign, all things considered. It has been so much worse for so many people. It has been sooooooo bad for so many.
One of my favourite statements now, as a career builder of new things, is "we need a new plan".
We really need a new plan, y'all.

There's something profoundly wrong, if when someone wishes their damn self happy birthday on this bird app, a passer by can visit the comments with a researcher's eye and find INSULTS fitting into 10 discrete categories, easily outnumbering kind wishes 6 or 7 and more to 1.
Yah.

A happy birthday to that sweet girl, and may every good, beautiful, healing, kind and lovely thing find her and hers this year and always.
And may this bird app, as it has for so many of us, show her friends, comrades, kindreds, loves, passions, and care. So much care.
/Zagadat