My friend John made a laughable prediction during one of our many conversations last year. On this auspicious day, we were decrying what we both saw as the dumbing down of the culture seeing the explosion of comic content creators in the country. To be an influencer, it’s almost as if you have to engage in sensational or sensual absurdities. In a moment of perspicacity, John said the day would come when Nigerian professors would start dancing on TikTok.
Given how technologically snobbish Nigerian academics are, I initially thought that prediction was somewhat of a stretch. It did not seem to me that they would ever fancy using video distribution platforms like TikTok and Instagram since they hardly even use a more orthodox platform like Facebook. But then, I thought again that that prediction didn’t seem far out of the reach of possibility given the misery in the land. Lecturers may be forced to join the TikTok zeitgeist, after all.
I regret to say that John’s prediction seems to have come to pass.
Just this year, I’ve come across a couple of Nigerian lecturers on TikTok dancing and acting goofy like your typical Gen Zer. Let’s start with Ochanya Lamai (@ochanyalamai). The video that made me discover her was her acting a pantomime to Mother Knows Best, a soundtrack from the Disney animation, Tangled. The banner of the post reads:
Female student: “Ma, Mr Chris volunteered to supervise me instead”
Me:”
Apparently, the hypothetical Mr Chris is a sexual predator. The pantomime was her cautioning her hypothetical female student against being supervised by him, hence, Mother Knows Best is a fitting song showing how protective she is of her female students against predatory male lecturers. I have to say that I liked the video because in her own way, she lent her voice against the age-long culture of sex for grades on university campuses in Nigeria. This is something I’ve made videos about. Out of curiosity, I decided to check her page to see what other things she does. As unorthodox as it may seem for a Nigerian academic, I would not have had a problem if her shtick was using pantomime for social commentary. It turns out that the Mother Knows Best pantomime was a one-off.
Video after video, I became more disappointed. Instead of pantomimes for social commentary, I saw videos and carousel posts of her dressed to the nines for social functions, goofing around with her students, walking in the hallway of her faculty, and her acting to viral social media soundbites. She lectures at the Mass Communication Department in Nasarawa State University. But not in a single post did she explain any interesting concept or fact in her area of specialisation. She is a skit maker who happens to be an academic. Or better yet, an academic who happens to be a skit maker.
Earlier this month, I stumbled on another lecturer on TikTok, Dr Steeze (@iamdrsteeze), as he so calls himself. The video that introduced him to me showed him walking and dancing with a larger-than-life posture. The banner reads:
Nothing do my shoulder, I just remember say out of all the lecturers wey dey Nigeria, na me be students’ favourite.
He definitely doesn’t come across as an academic with his dreads and chain. In fact, he has the stereotypical looks of a Yahoo Boy. My problem is not with his looks, however. Like Ochanya, my problem with Dr Steeze is his content. He geolocates his videos to Federal University Oye-Ekiti, and I assume that’s where he lectures. Not in a single video did he explain any concept or theory in his field of specialisation. He, too, is just another lecturer who doubles as a part-time skit maker. And then there is another one who calls himself Brabisco (@brabisco). There’s no need to say much. Watch what he does here.
You could say these three examples form a ridiculously small sample size for me to conclude that academics are now dancing on TikTok. That’s a fair point. However, the trend holds for most Nigerian academics I’ve seen on TikTok, as they consistently lean into skit-making over intellectual content. One would assume that given how much we complain about the gulf that exists between the gown and the town, tech-compliant academics would leverage platforms like TikTok to close that gulf. Instead, they turn themselves into skit makers.
We seem to be going from one extreme to another extreme. It is true that academics are usually standoffish. They hardly use social media. They hardly respond to requests for podcast interviews. They hardly publish books. They seem content with simply publishing in journals and attending conferences abroad. They often don’t care about the intellectual well-being of their students. It is then no surprise that they don’t leverage social media to propagate knowledge. But in trying to correct the culture of intellectual elitism, lecturers like Ochanya, Dr Steeze, and Brabisco have embraced another form of extremism. In wanting to be ‘cool’, they dumb themselves down. It’s all about showcasing their sartorial elegance, jumping on trends, and becoming a meme. They now compete with Gen Zers in what I like to call the algorithm of the absurd. They too want to become influencers. We’ve gone from intellectual elitism to algorithmic buffoonery.
In a way, one could argue that Ochanya, Dr Steeze, and Brabisco are simply responding to what Nigerians fancy. We are generally not a people given to intellectual discourses. If the goal is to be an influencer, you stand no chance if you use TikTok for academic purposes, you might argue. Why would you invest so much into scripting and editing well-researched content when almost no one would engage it? The rational thing to do is either adapt to the algorithm of the absurd or simply avoid social media altogether.
But this is not the case in places like America, Canada, and the UK. There are academics in these places who have almost superstar status. Richard Dawkins, an English professor of evolutionary biology, has a huge following on social media. He has written bestseller books. He has done numerous podcast appearances and, in fact, has a podcast of his own. Everybody, of course, knows Jordan Peterson. Before Peterson got famous, he had been posting his lectures on YouTube for years. Gad Saad, a professor of evolutionary psychology in Canada, has had a podcast for about 10 years. He has a sizeable number of followers on Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube. His book, The Parasitic Mind, is a bestseller. And what about Steven Pinker, Noam Chomsky, Jonathan Haidt, Glenn Loury, and Jeffrey Sachs? I could go on and on. These are famous academics you can’t accuse of intellectual elitism. I’ve personally learned a great deal from watching them and reading their books.
A few days ago, I came across Prof Moore on TikTok. According to his bio, he has a PhD in History, and he has been a college professor for 10 years. In the video that introduced him to me, he explained the differences in the philosophies of Plato and Aristotle. The last time I checked before going to press, the video had 23 thousand likes. Why would a philosophy video resonate with over 23 thousand people on a goofy platform like TikTok? If Nigerian and African academics eschew intellectual snobbery and leverage these platforms, they too can find their audience, like Prof Moore. One of my lecturers back in Obafemi Awolowo University, Dr Olusegun Joseph, started a YouTube channel about two years ago where he talks about literary theories. In a culture that celebrates absurdities, his channel is a breath of fresh air.
The switch from the intellectual snobbery of our academics to what seems like their growing embrace of the algorithm of the absurd is a worrying trend. It’s bad enough that Africa is an afterthought when it comes to cerebral conversations. It’s more shameful that academics now feel pressured to become skit makers.
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