Larry Madowo Tries His Hand At Blogging And Starts By Taking Shots At Other Bloggers

Piece by: Uncle Chim Tuna
Lifestyle

When it comes to blogging, there are some heavyweights and then the rest of the minnows. I belonged to the former but now I have begun again so I am in the latter -but not for long. Anyway, back to the lecture at hand courtesy of Larry Madowo.

Larry Madowo felt the need to tell the blogosphere about what he feels the problem is with Kenyan blogs and trust him to be coy about him. But enough about quoting verbatim, let's get what he had to say...

It was a made-for-social-media scandal. Moderately famous irreverent writer allegedly sexually assaults outspoken author and activist.

Even before Tony Mochama and Shailja Patel, the central characters, had spoken for themselves, everyone else already had.

Every raging feminist crawled out of online nooks and crannies to rail against institutionalised misogyny.

Men, lots of them, openly supported the man, also known as Smitta, in the calamity that had smitten him.

People who barely knew either of the individuals in the case weighed in on the case with religious dedication.

OUTRAGE ONLINE

The temptation to comment on the hottest story on the Kenyan Internet “streets” was too strong and many gave in to it.

Channelling sanctimonious outrage online can be pretty hard in the confusing world of social media.

One of the Internet’s greatest attributes is also one of its greatest shortcomings: democratisation of information.

The Internet is one big listicle (portmanteau of list and article) wasteland and I’m trying to make this a thing on print. Consider this the definitive guide to trial by social media, whatever the cause célèbre is:

1 Ignore all the facts: Never let facts get in the way of a good story, especially when you’re trying to channel your sanctimonious outrage. Don’t bother to read up on the subjects, to Google any information you might be unsure of.

Take whatever turns up on your Facebook feed as the infallible truth and proceed to form your strong opinions based on them.

When facts surface that vary from your version of events, don’t bother to correct any public posts you might have made or even apologise. Apologies are for sissies.

2The early post catches the attention: Comment quickly or you will get drowned out once everyone jumps onto the bandwagon. Learn to spot trends before they occur and ride the wave. Think of the number of shares and retweets a really good post would get if you were on it before people even saw its scandal qualities!

3 Quote the Bible: Or the Quran. Actually, any religious text will do. People love it when you talk religious to them. Chapter and verse and the actual citation are good crutches for your opinion. You come across as genuine and well-intentioned and not in the least malicious.

4 Quote the Constitution: You don’t need a law degree to quote the law. The whole thing is available as a small PDF document and you can easily search using keywords. Nothing says you’re a clever human being capable of Googling than a neat little legal opinion on social media, however far off the mark.