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Why I have Trust Issues

Trust Issues

Instagram

Meet ‘miss_thick_dee,’ a young 20-year-old girl with hips and ass as big as her forehead. Of course, that’s not the name her mother gave her. ‘Miss’ came from the strong independent woman that has a disdain for less-than-rich guys. Thick is open for interpretation really. It may be the hips. Or the forehead. Or her state of mind, I don’t know. I’ve not yet met her.

As you scrolled through the Instagram explore page at the wee hours of the night (I call it nocturnal research), you came across her in a tight black skimpy dress with a 30cm layer of lipstick smeared across her thin lips. She’s as luscious as any other Instagram girl (model?). Because you are a man, and a man has visual needs, you have to see more. And also, you know how long it’s been since you’ve felt the touch of a woman.

You click on the sensual name because you’ve always been a fan of thick mamis. After all, meat is for men. The account pops up and you’re hit with a sense of low self-esteem with just hint of green. Her  23 thousand followers laugh back at you, with your teary eyes and envy.

Allow me to take a short detour. For the longest time, you have always wanted to be phlegmatic of social media and all its virtual creations of likes, followers, friends, and retweets. You want it to not matter to you because it actually shouldn’t. A thousand likes won’t fuel your car nor will 10k followers pay your rent but here you are feeling a bit scarred because you’re still at 100 followers one year after joining ‘the gram.’ The weight society has put on social media has taken a toll on your apathy. Being a millennial isn’t helping either.

Miss_dee goes on to bruise your ego because she has to give you permission for you to see her. You haven’t reached this far to give up now. No way. You send that permission request as you ironically laugh at the 22k egoless bastards that she hasn’t given the courtesy of a follow back. You know you are about to join them. Almost immediately, she grants access. Oh! Does she have mercy! You think.

She’s breathtaking, miss_dee. Only her skewed hairline lets her down, but she makes up for it with her body and amazing nails. The filters also aren’t doing a bad job with her smile. She loves Big Square. Actually, she only dines there, and Artcaffe. She is rich. No, she looks rich. Sometime in 2016, she had a table filled with Moet and Johnny Walkers. You would have to sell your kidneys to afford Moet. You wonder where you went wrong. At 20, you are two different faces of different coins. She isn’t even a coin, she’s a note. A new crisp thousand shilling note. She likes those Adidas sneakers that look like Yeezys. At least you have their doppelgänger knock-offs.

Miss_dee uses hashtags. Miss_dee uses a lot of hashtags. Miss_dee loves hashtags. Her favourite one sticks out, #toomuchssauce. You conclude that miss_dee is famous. Hell, she even took a photo with Sauti Sol’s Bien-Aime and captioned it “God’s Speed.” She has to be going places.

Safaricom breaks it to you that unlike Miss_dee, you are broke and you should sleep. You sleep soundly that night but not before you set the alarm an hour earlier to wake up and go get your goals. She has inspired you like that.

Reality

A month later and you still check up on her to see what she’s been doing. Or who. More ego hurting photos have been put up; a girls’ weekend out where they went to Naivasha and daddy’s new car, a Porsche. In your mind, you wonder which daddy she means, but you get it out of the gutter before you get into worse conclusions.

Later that week, there’s a shindig at Juja. You know Juja, no? The dust-filled place where students are redefining debauchery, and not in a good way. You miss the tipple. It’s been ages since you’ve wet your mouth, so you decide to go.

It’s a nice party with girls and really cheap booze and dust. There, you have a great time blowing off some Computer Science steam. It gets even better when you spot a familiar face. Miss_thick_dee herself. In her own skin and flesh. To confirm this, you visit her account again. Hold a photo of her to her face subtly. It’s a 100% match.

The disappointment begins when you realize she isn’t as good as the photos. Her hairline is way more skewed than it appeared. Without her lipstick, she has those dried tattered peeled off lips that you loathe. Her forehead is more prominent than Biko’s. (Not that you’ve seen it, but the way he insists, it has to be really huge). And her body? Let’s just say she should pay attentions to the “Tummy Blast” posters I see in Ruaka and Kahawa. Only her nails match up to what she shows us online. And remember the Johnnys she was downing at Privee? Well, they’re not at the party. But she has no problem supplementing them with cheap ass Legend Brandy. You see, on Instagram, she’s a straight up 8.5 but in reality, she’s a struggling 6.

Taunted by all these revelations, you have to know more about her. So you ask around. Her name, for instance, is Dorcas Karwitha. She does B.Com at Kenyatta University. Her parents fund her profligate lifestyle which is a better answer to what you had previously concluded. And allegedly, she bought ‘gram’ followers.

With that, you’re heartbroken. Heartbroken but wiser. You learn that social media is a platform to show the best version of yourself. You learn that social media aliases are alter egos. You learn that a rich lifestyle doesn’t necessarily mean you’ve worked for it. You learn that Instagram is not the place to find motivation to be a better person or work hard. More importantly, you learn that followers can be bought, and for a dark two seconds you consider doing it but you snap out of it because you just realized social media means more to you than you want to admit. Shit.

In other news, I stumbled through some good local timeless music on Soundcloud I think you’d all listen to. Let’s support our own. Listen here.

 

Be a darling and share this:

King

King is a mad writer on the loose. He is suspected to have lost his mind a few years after he was born. Since then, he has been writing his mind almost everywhere he can put his pen on. Someone – a government, a state, a police force, a parent, a teacher, a rabbi, a president, a sacco, a doctor, a deranged ex, a church, a therapist, or anyone with a bit of power bestowed upon them – should reprimand him and help him.

21 thoughts to “Why I have Trust Issues”

  1. My guy you never disappoint. The time I take reading your pieces (then spend the whole day on miss_dee-like profiles on IG) is well used. Flawless writing.

  2. I’m still stuck at Dorcas Karwitha..for all I know she could be a distant relative. Hehe
    All in all though I love this piece.

  3. Hehe… I just love how you describe Juja, hehe, hiyo inaweza kuwa slogan:
    “Juja. Redefining debauchery since 1994.”

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