Chesa Mpama! Not since DJ Black Coffee slapped rapper AKA’s road manager in 2016 has a slap generated so much heat. It happened last Sunday when actor and rapper Will Smith stood up and smacked comedian and host Chris Rock during the Academy Awards ceremony.
Watched by hundreds of millions worldwide, the mpama dominated online discussions for a week.
Smith stood up after Rock made a joke about his wife Jada Pinkett’s short hair and referred to her as GI Jane, a bald movie character. It emerged that Pinkett has an auto-immune condition called alopecia. Rock and many of us did not even know about it.
Many speculated that the slap was staged between two veteran celebrities to shore up the Oscars’ waning fortunes. Rock took the slap in his stride while Smith threw a tantrum and profanities.
He subsequently apologised for his behaviour when he accepted the Best Actor Award.
The violence was condemned by many, while others praised the Fresh Prince of Bel Air actor for standing up for his wife.
Online pop psychologists explained away his reaction to his emasculation after Pinkett had earlier disclosed she cheated on him with their son’s friend, August Alsina. It was just Will trying to claim his manhood back.
Closer to home, it emerged our unemployment rate rose to a record 35.3% in the fourth quarter. I’d thought this was a topic that would generate heated discussions but I was mistaken. Zilch. Instead, the online heat switched to supporting Walter Sisulu University student Sibongile Mani, who was sentenced to five years in prison for pilfering more than R800 000 of National Student Financial Aid Scheme (NSFAS) money. Mani made headlines after she was arrested for spending a portion of the R14-million erroneously deposited into her student account in 2017. She went on a 76-day shopping spree. Social media “lawyers” deem the sentence unfair. The fact the 31-year-old student should have known better and used only her allocated monthly R1 400 escaped many who called for leniency.
Be that as it may, these are the topics that occupy the minds of South Africans. Perhaps that’s exactly what the government had in mind when it announced a plan to supply every household with 50GB free data per month.
Having confessed that it can’t create jobs, the government is throwing the people into the clutches of Tinder swindlers and Facebook rapists.
Let them eat data!
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