FollowFollow

In Nigeria, there is a name for people who do not, cannot or will not have a mind of their own. Their plight is to constantly chase trends; their fate is to never reach that nebulous place where it is happening. Once they are close to the centre of things, the centre relocates in the direction they are coming from and so they run from natural hair, to Brazilian weaves, to Hummer jeeps, to green cars, to Lagos, to Abuja, to London, to New York on an on, back and forth in a never ending race.

Like any green blooded Nigerian, I despised the followfollow. After all, what kind of human being does not, cannot or will not have a mind of their own. This morning I did not know.

It was not a sudden thing. I did not sleep one night and wake up like this. Instead it was a gradual process, a slow but steady slump into this world of trendspotting and chasing.

I discovered that many writers were now using this blogging thing. I read their blogs, I commented on their blogs, sometimes I even bookmarked them. Then I now saw that many other people were going to these blogs and starting their own blogs and linking themselves to the blogs that inspired them and referencing, cross referencing, quoting, paraphrasing and etcetera-ing each other. I had spotted a trend and from there, it was a slippery slope.

Tomorrow I will wake up and all the writers will have departed to twitter. Ah well, in the true, undiminishing, unquenchable spirit of the followfollow... I will follow them.