Fame, Love and Coexistence

"Hustle o!" This is my friend, Chinwe's favorite chant. Tell Chinwe you are heart broken and the first thing she will scream is "Hustle o". That statement as funny and annoying as it sounds, it is a very solid advice. The young girl has seen things in this Lagos to turn that into her anthem.

Someone tweeted some weeks ago saying, Love and Fame can never coexist and somehow I agree with that line of thought.

The Miss Universe pageant held about a month or two ago and it gathered a lot of traction on social media, duh it's the miss Universe! Not only did the Miss Nigeria representative trend alongside for her display of joy seeing another Black and African woman win the crown, the winner Zozibini Tunzi, a 5'8 stunner with a beautiful mohawk hairstyle trended for her grace and speech during the competition.

Soon social media feeds (read Twitter) were flooded with tweets about her, what she said and what she did, where she grew up, up to whom she should date now seeing as she has upgraded Lol. Everyone wanted to be Zozi all of a sudden or at least get linked to her, I noticed the same thing the day Mercy Eke became the first female winner of the Big Brother Naija show. The love, the accolades, the attention and all the things that come with sudden fame.

I randomly tweeted about my observation, wondering how it felt like for someone to gain sudden fame and how to deal with immense love from strangers but most importantly old friends, foes or flames who never cared till the fame (The F words are probably on purpose haha). Expectedly, I got replies from people on the timeline but nothing prepared me for the direct messages I received.

For Deborah (Name changed) when she got a job which put her in the faces of people, she got love from a lot of people, friends and strangers alike but soon that initial joy of fame turned into irritation for her. She became irritated about the sudden attention from people who knew her but never seemed to care and got even more paranoid about the love from strangers (the former being more annoying for her)

Philip (Name changed) who is a personal friend had similar conversation with me citing how a girl he used to have a huge crush on, who locked him in her friend zone and threw the keys away in the past suddenly changed and became more loving when his song started getting massive airplay. Initially he loved the attention, he finally got the girl he liked to like him back but the deeper he got close to her, he wondered if same girl would have given him attention or followed him around like a puppy six months earlier when he was hopping from studio to studio.

I remember driving with my friend four years back and this number kept calling, the person's name was saved as "don't pick!!!" and I found that amusing. Asked why he refused to pick and the name and he replied me that ever since he appeared on a show on TV and won a prize, his ex was back professing her love for him and it was now more irritating than flattering because of how she treated him in the relationship.

It is not news that people love to be associated with success and human beings are innately selfish, I mean it is a popular saying in Lagos that you have to fake it till you make it. Someone tweeted the other day saying how disgusting it is with Lagosians and how they treat people before and after they know they are popular, talmabout "We should do brunch my G" (Tani G, who is your G? You just ignored my existence some minutes ago haha). And this is true! Human beings are so predictable and it begs the question of fame and love, can they truly coexist?

How do you deal with sudden love from strangers who did not know your name few months ago? How do you deal with the whole attention and being put on a pedestal? Trust me it feels so good to be known for your hard work but when that fame comes with unexpected attention, how do you sift through? An acquaintance the other day was telling me how Reality TV gives fame but also takes from your person if one is not careful. You now seem restricted to say and do a lot of things that many people would not care much for prior.

For me, I see it as a two edged sword. Not everyone is coming to leech on you, there are old friends who truly support and are proud of you and there are new people who genuinely come to love you when they discover you, paranoia is normal and very valid and that is why discernment is very important. It is easy to get carried away unless you are true to yourself and core values. My friend said, it's best to have a list of questions with two timelines (prior fame and after fame) and you must answer these questions yourself. "Is there a behavioral change in this person? Six months ago, was this the energy I got from this person? A year ago, would this person communicate this much with me? Would this person be at my beck and call some months back? Was this person dependable some months ago? If I lost my fame now, given these answers, will this person still give me the same energy?"

People see the glamour and fame, very few people pay attention to the story, hard work, sweat, tears, sacrifices and pain it took to get there.....because again, human beings are selfish and only care about what makes them comfortable, your fame!


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