SA Mom Hits Social Media Nail on Head: Stop Vilifying Celebs, Focus on Leaders

Anyone following the Ellen Degeneres story? In short, our Be Kind hero was found to be lacking in leadership skills, and some staff outed her for an unhappy work environment… writes Kim Nicola Stephens (a Cape Town mom of three, and Sport & outdoor communication consultant).

Then it escalated to racism, and paedophilia and eating children. I’m not even joking. She shut down the comments on her (92m followers) Insta account and stopped posting. This woman who had so many of us belly laughing at everything from the grotesque putrefaction of US governance under Trump, to a daft dancing game called Poke-A-Face (participants in paper bag masks trying to poke each others faces on stage with the Lady Gaga Poker Face playing).

She publicly and proudly normalised lesbian marriage, gives millions to charity and, frankly, never promised you or I anything other than a good talk show that would make you laugh, make you think, and end up wanting Stephen Boss as a best mate. Then Ellen, known to be a comedian and excellent satirist, aired an online apology coinciding with her new show season. She was dragged for being flippant (she is a f*cking comedian, what are you on?) and continues to receive death threats.

You don’t like her? Stop following! Don’t watch her show! She is not government, she is not sitting on your taxes, you can choose to dislike and move on!

So locally we have seen a few kinda sorta similar things. That total miscreant Tooth oke who tore in to women’s bodies a week or two back. He was, rightly, lambasted. He gave a shallow, weak-as-boarding-school-tea apology, and some of the best in the social media underword exposed his cocktail-sausage personality for exactly what it is. Fade out, right? No! Now there is a 7,000 follower strong FB group calling for Justice Against (Tooth oke, I won’t say his name he deserves no further fame). What?!? He is an irrelevant turd, and there you all are baying for blood. Stop that shit!

https://twitter.com/godiwilson_/status/1306985646138052619?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1307639437283688448%7Ctwgr%5Eshare_3&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.iol.co.za%2Flifestyle%2Fstyle-beauty%2Fbeauty%2Fclothing-brand-distances-itself-from-cape-town-mans-fat-shaming-rant-after-video-goes-viral-58dd9835-a0d6-44d5-a240-cfab2007f054

And the Kakness. Used to be Kiffness… wish he would wash his hair. His stuff has been borderline for a while, but sometimes funny. Annoying and oftentimes cringeworthy. Death threats? Too far.

Sometimes its good to view social media the way we used to view books. Do I relate to the content and feel its worth investing in? Buy! Is it not for me, not worth reviewing, not worth sharing… unfollow. Bye!

Celebs, musicians, clothing brand assholes… they are not going to save the world. Stop holding them up as if they are worthy of that pressure. Spotlight on our actual leaders, its they who must not let us down.

This post republished on SAPeople with Kim Nicola Stephen’s kind permission. Follow Kim on Facebook for more brilliant posts like this.