Nairobi, Kenya When I left my career in the legal field and entered the world of what is known today as “content creation,” my goal was simple and clear: to share my art with people.
At that time, photographers in Nairobi (the capital and largest city of Kenya) were known for their work, their photographic style, their subjects, and sometimes even the type of cameras they owned.
When I became involved in this field, it was self-evident that the platforms “Instagram,” “Twitter” (as it was called at the time), and “Facebook” were spaces for sharing creative work, not for sharing oneself and its personal details.
But the Internet is a very fluid and mutable being; After a decade has passed, we have turned into something else entirely; We have become “content creators” and “influencers”.
The model has changed radically; Your fame is no longer dependent on what you are good at and what you do, but rather on what your personality represents: how you dress, how you speak, and even what you eat for breakfast, whether it is a cup of tea or coffee, or what those who follow the OMAD diet (OMAD) consume in the morning, which is a diet that relies on eating only one meal a day.
Surprisingly, it turned out that the details of my way of life matter to others, and even influence the shaping of their lives.
Commercial companies have become aware of this matter, to the point that they are offering contracts to integrate their products into the details of my daily life in ways that deeply intersect with the conscience of my audience.
Since 2018, this practice has become my main source of livelihood.
Mobile phones…daily newsrooms
Social media in various parts of the world has become a compelling force that shapes the details of human life, especially among the younger generations of the “Millennial Generation” and those that follow.
Africa was not an innovator in this development; In urban centers with high rates of mobile phone and internet penetration, the first thing one reaches for in the morning is a smartphone to view social media streams across platforms such as Instagram, X, TikTok and Facebook.
The Kenyan citizen wakes up to check the WhatsApp application, and before he finishes eating his breakfast, he has swallowed a flood of information flowing from all directions: an announcement about a missing person, a religious verse, a meme, which is an image or humorous idea that spreads quickly on the Internet, a link to a vacant job, a poster for protest awareness, a fake quote attributed to someone who never said it, a trending dance challenge, an obituary for a deceased person, a political insult, or A YouTube tutorial, a screenshot from the corridors of Parliament, a voice message from an aunt, or the details of someone’s holiday in Diani (a popular tourist beach area on the Indian Ocean in Kenya). All this momentum flows seamlessly through just one device.
In a conversation with Grace Ndege, a digital marketing expert at the prominent agency Digitribe, it became clear that by 2026, we no longer live only in actual reality, but most of our lives are inside the dark boxes of our phones.
“We spend a lot of time capturing and documenting moments instead of living them in reality, and the lion’s share of marketing budgets have abandoned traditional channels to move towards the digital space, because this space is the new home of the broad masses.” – Grace Ndege
So, when a beverage company – for example – seeks to launch a new product, change consumer behavior, or build a close emotional connection to its brand, social media becomes its main gateway. This is where people like me come in, as we integrate these products into the details of our daily lives and present them to our audiences.
Ndege adds: “Attention is the real currency today, and that is why platforms’ algorithms are constantly being updated to capture every bit of it.”
“Attention is the real currency today, which is why platforms’ algorithms are constantly being updated to capture every last bit of it.”
The Internet is a civic space and a classroom
David Mbutela, who was active on social media before recently retreating from it, describes this strategic shift of the Internet in the broadest and most profound terms: He said: “The Internet began as a miracle of human communication: machines speaking to machines, then humans speaking to humans, then ordinary people speaking to the entire world. What began as a network of wires turned into a paved road, and as soon as this road reached us, life began to move at a completely different rhythm.”
“The Internet began as a miracle of human communication: machines speaking to machines, then humans speaking to humans, then ordinary people speaking to the entire world. What began as a network of wires turned into a paved road, and once this road reached us, life began to move at a completely different rhythm.”
This was clearly demonstrated in important historical milestones:
Kenyans for Kenya 2011: When the country responded to the famine that struck the north not only with compassion and tragedy, but with organized and disciplined collective action. The popular M-Pesa mobile banking service has become a real lifeline, and phones have become effective tools for fundraising and relief.
Student movement in South Africa (October 2015): Students launched the #FeesMustFall movement, a broad protest movement against the increase in university fees, led by young people to challenge the status quo and mobilize to demand free higher education; To transform local crises from oblivion into visible and immediate continental issues.
Anti-Finance Bill Protests in Kenya: A youth-led movement denouncing the proposed tax increases, where boys and girls turned the Internet into a civic and educational classroom; Complex legal terms were translated into simplified explanatory clips on the TikTok platform. People who had never seen a law in their lives began to discuss clauses, taxes, political representation, police powers, and sovereign debt, making public policy clearer to the general public.
There is a steady and continuous transformation that these platforms witness daily through what is known as “YouTube University.” You see a boy in Kampala (the capital of Uganda) receiving film industry origins from a content creator residing in Canada, a Nigerian chef building a global audience and breaking a Guinness World Record, and a dancer turning a ten-second clip on TikTok into an entire career.
Social media has accelerated the pace of cultural exchange and changed the features of everyday language. Words began to travel in the blink of an eye, taking on new meanings. In contemporary digital culture, acceptance and authentication are described in special terms, excellence and creativity are viewed in a tone borrowed from the world of cooking, and strong statements are followed by decisive points, so that the style of human communication becomes faster, sharper, more spontaneous and less formal.
The price of constant communication and the psychology of destructive comparisons
However, this absolute and continuous contact is not without serious consequences that erode the body of human relations.
“Social media flattens things; it strips human connections of their natural, emotional context,” says Maggie Gitto, a family psychotherapist based in Nairobi. “Are we really friends just because we have digital access to each other?”
The answer to this question is not easy at all. As a content creator, I find myself building communities and close relationships with audiences, and I sometimes have an overwhelming feeling of kinship and unity. But these audiences only know about me what I choose to share with them; What is shared is a product that has been carefully selected and decorated behind the screens.
The same platforms that bring people together also open the doors to destructive comparisons. Instagram turns from a source of inspiration into a measure of impotence and shortcomings.
You see an old relative of yours who has bought land or is spending his vacation in Zanzibar (the famous tourist archipelago of islands in Tanzania), another has announced his engagement, a third is showing off his muscles, and your favorite podcast presenter has bought a luxury car, had a baby, or has a larger kitchen and a balcony overlooking a more magical and attractive sunset.
“Social media did not create envy, but it amplified its voice and made its repercussions grow exponentially. It provides conclusive evidence that someone, somewhere, is living a better life than yours. And even when we realize with certainty that these images are selected and manufactured, the psychological impact can still bleed deeply into the conscience.”
Then come feelings of shame, embarrassment, and mutual blame. We begin to realize that digital communication does not necessarily mean building a real community, but rather is just a path to it. Constant communication did not succeed in producing deeper and more honest human relationships. The content creator does not reveal all his secrets: he does not display his crumbling marriage, nor the constant pressure to maintain bright appearances, nor the mental and psychological exhaustion when ideas run dry, or when a post fails to garner the desired interaction. Rather, the idea of sufficiency and one’s reaching one’s goal has become gelatinous and difficult to define.
“You are in dire need of a real life away from screens, a life that you actually practice on the ground, so as not to give other people’s virtual spaces a force majeure and false force that crushes your reality.”
Here, Maggie Guiteau offers a simple treatment prescription: “You urgently need a real life away from screens, a life that you actually practice on the ground, so as not to give other people’s virtual spaces a force majeure and falseness that crushes your reality.”
She suggests the solution is to log out of this virtual world, and then return to it – as David Mbutela did – only when one is firmly established and possesses sufficient awareness that enables him to distinguish between concrete reality and manufactured show performance. In the past, fake news and misleading information needed huge institutions to support it to spread. Today, all it takes is an innovative comment and a passing incident that becomes the talk of the hour in the blink of an eye.
So, what does social media represent to the modern African person?
David Mbutela answers this question by saying:
“It is a school, a mall, a stage, a war zone, a daily newspaper, a courtroom, a rumor mill, a protest arena, a personal memoir, and a deadly weapon.”
Social media alone may not have been able to save or destroy us; Rather, it was only destined to collect our nobility, our cruelty, our hunger, our boredom, and our extraordinary genius, and put them all in one vehicle that will take us towards the unknown of the future.
