Poor and Famous

Dear Readalot


Fame is one those things that a lot of people wanna attain. People want to walk on the streets and be  acknowledged. "I know that guy na." When you're famous, people want to associate with you more. They want other people to know that they know you.



When you're famous, all your distant cousins and family friend's family friends want to associate with you. Fame is wild. A famous man/woman is always in the limelight. Everyone wants to know what you're doing and how you're doing it. For some reason, they start to think that even when you're doing the regular stuff, you do it different from other regular people. This is why you find magazines with large spreads of famous people eating, swimming, laughing, making phone calls etc. like they do it differently. Famous people are like aliens.

Fame is different from fame. Fame in Lagos is diferent from fame in Ibadan. Fame in Ibadan is different from fame in Abuja. Fame in Abuja is different from fame in Yankee which is also different from fame in Somalia. When the legend, Michael Jackson, was alive, He was the perfect example of Ultimate Fame. Unborn children already knew who he was. People would cry and faint at his concerts. He couldn't go out much because he was too recognisable and people would pounce on him.

In naija, the famous people are either very lucky or very unlucky. Nigerians don't have time. If they're not benefitting anything from you, they don't care about you even if all your forefathers were famous. They won't cry at your concerts unless somebody beats them. If you want to be real famous with all the efizi, you gotta pick a correct location. Don't pick Nigeria.

In yankee, most of the famous people have money. The ones that don't are richer than the average non-famous person. The other day, I heard about this famous American artist who went bankrupt. Because of her bankruptcy, she moved into another small mansion with a pool and the works. For her, life was hard. Many stars in naija don't even know how to swim talk less of having a pool. Stars are like the next guy struggling for survival. You can enter danfo and sit next to a Nollywood actor or musician.
YOU: Bros hafar na? Na here you dey?
STAR: Na so we see am oh.

Anyone can be famous. Not anyone can be a star. If your face is on TV, maybe for one competition or something, everybody recognises you. When they see you on top of okada, they won't know that you didn't win the money. Their own is, "Omo I see this guy wey dey sing on top bike men. No swag at all." It's safe to say that in this case, fame is a curse.

Yesterday, two grown very famous men living in the States took to twitter and started insulting themselves.

GUY1: I have more money than you
GUY2: Issalie, you are owing everybody money and you'll now be lying to everybody. Oniro osi.
GUY1: If not for me, nobody will even know you. Oniranu.
GUY2: Liar. Bully. Everybody said I won this tweet battle.
ME: O_o

These two men are men I can easily call Granpa and this kindof argument is one you would expect between teenagers. But still, if they weren't very famous men with about 2 million followers each, nobody would have noticed or cared.

Fame has it's pros, it also has its cons. But I personally think non-famous people are happier people. You can buy boli when you want, enter bus without having to wear face cap. You don't have to look good all the time because nobody really cares and nobody expects too much of you. You don't have to pretend to like people you can't stand. If you diss someone on twitter, they won't show you on TV. So if you're not famous, be very grateful.

Yours truly, Rantalot.