SDA pastor rebukes Kenyans who ‘overshare’ life updates on social media
By Winnie MabelToday, people enjoy posting about their lives on social media because it gives them a platform to connect and interact with others whether near or far away. It also gives users space to express themselves, their interests, hobbies, achievements and personal experiences. For others, it is a space to invite validation and feedback in the form of likes, comments and shares.
Social media provides a platform where users can digitally archive their life experiences. Still, others use it for a livelihood as influencers who can offer insights, advice or motivation to their followers on one subject or the other.
Lately, however, social media has become a space where people overshare their lives in the name of becoming popular by amassing followers, seeking validation and generally just showing off.
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It is this oversharing and validation seeking that irked one renowned pastor in Nairobi. Newlife Seventh Day Adventist Church’s Pastor Elizabeth Mokoro has strongly rebuked Kenyans who are always posting about the smallest things in their lives on social media instead of keeping them private from strangers; and sometimes even faking that everything is going great in their lives to appear happy online and seek validation from strangers.
“I see people posting things; wives, family, children. People pause like they are okay, they’re struggling things. ‘It’s my birthday’ so what? ‘Help me wish my husband a happy birthday’ and then what happens? ‘It’s our anniversary’ so that we do what? Another one, when they board a plane, just a step even, they have already updated all their social medias – Facebook, Twitter. If you ask them how much the ticket was, they don’t know. It is company money,” Pastor said in a recent sermon.
“And then, they take comfort in those comments such as ‘beautiful, congratulations, gorgeous.’ Tell me how much money it has put in your account. Nonsense. I wish the rate at which we are posting personal things would be the same rate we post businesses. We encourage each other to do business. Serious things. We post evangelists, business opportunities- but people post nothing because themselves they are full of nothing. Some of us have learned to move whether there is a like or not,” the pastor went on.
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Her sentiments were met with mixed reactions as sampled below by Nairobi News:
“When I stopped posting about me, haters disappeared. Nowadays I am sleeping in peace. I realized people don’t like when you are happy and celebrating,” said Dorique Tuwei.
“No rule to life. Do what pleases you. Let others do what they want! Don’t suffocate them,” Bunmilola Olaofe-Odo quipped.
“Bitter truth. Be blessed mum,” commented Omogusii barber.
Others opined that Pastor Mokoro was probably bitter with life to have such sentiments and prayed for her healing.
“Heal, mama. Allow people to celebrate the small achievements. You don’t know their story,” said Wildflower.
Today in Kenya, there are several influencers known for oversharing, clout chasing and even taking strangers into their bedrooms – just to get views and followers, forgetting that there are people with ill will and wicked tongues who do nothing but sit back and wish evil upon their targets.
Instagram and YouTube are the main platforms where strangers get to watch long videos of people’s lives because of the unfiltered content they share.
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