KEEPING UP WITH THE BALOGUNS!

Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery ~ Charles Calab Colton

I came across a different spin on this famous quote the other day that made me smile and gave me a 'light bulb' moment, it read something like this:

"Though imitation may be the sincerest form of flattery it often means that you lack personality, talent and creativity so kindly stop before you hurt yourself!"

'Follow-Follow' mentality is widespread amongst our people. It is the comparison to one's neighbour as a benchmark for social class or the accumulation of material goods. Failing to 'Keep up with the Baloguns' occurs when we are more concerned about our standard of living in relation to our peers or neighbours.

We strive for the perfect home, job, relationships/marriage, perfect kids, loads of money, most coveted holidays, the list is non- exhaustive and can also transcend to striving for a perceived perfection in our physical appearance.

The media has the tendency to dictate to us what and how we should be, Who The Baloguns are, and what we need to do to be like them! So many of us end up 'faking it', there is no harm in improving ourselves I must admit but it is a bit of a problem when common sense is not applied.

I have always loved reading blogs from my homeland but nowadays there is a trend emerging when rather than writing about matters arising and providing quality entertainment, bloggers are treating us to full blown up pics of someone's Instagram page with them posing with their latest possession be it wristwatch, designer bag, car or helicopter.

For the sake of clarity, I'm not talking about all those random pics taken at those events we attend, dressed in our glad rags and genuinely have fun. I'm talking of photos of someone sitting on the bonnet of what they "purport to be" a top of range car with a quote from them, like  "My latest 'tear rubber' (slang for new car) has arrived, whom God has blessed let no man curse!". Initially I'd get all excited but not for the reason you're thinking though! I'd quickly scroll down to the comments section of the post (I have told you time and time again, it's the comments that making this blogging thingy so interesting!) expecting to see this person torn apart by the voices of reason with comments like, ' See mumu, maga, mugu!!' 'okay we have seen, now crawl back to your hole' 'and how is this news?' 'why is this interesting?' 'How childish, What's up with this money-miss-road of a somebody!' ' What a show-off', 'unku please I beg try and eat some humble pie' 

So you can imagine my bewilderment when rather comments like 'God bless your hustle', 'If you've have it, flaunt it', 'my own time will come', 'Big boyz big tinz, I jealous you o', 'you are just too much', 'ah Baba mi, show me the way' are what face me. And as I quickly scroll through 200 or so comments, 195 of them are 'hailing' this wannabe and woe betide the poor odd voice of reason that questions this type of behaviour, they get slated by the BIC's and/or accused of being a 'hater'. 

For the record BIC's aka "Brave In Cyber" are persons who sows discord on the Internet by starting arguments or upsetting people, the type that are only vocal because they can hide behind the cloak of anonymity that social media provides. Should one face them in 'real time' they tend to be rather unimpressive people, all their swagger is reserved for the Internet!

I guess defining Who The Baloguns are? is subjective and varies from person to person. And here I come to another amazing, strange but true life tale. Someone I once knew would always pretend to be left-handed at any function where she considered the crowd to be 'aristo', 'up there or 'aje butter'. Now you really need to have seen this to appreciate the craziness.

She was right-handed but would place spoon in left hand, the angle of her arm and elbow would look so peculiar and awkward. Watching her navigate that spoon from plate to her mouth was painful to say the least but you see, to her, eating with her left hand was synonymous with all things 'butter' and she was Keeping up with the Balogun's in her head, albeit by a very strange means. 

A quick round robin of my home girls on a good day which includes both friends and family is varied, we would have:

Team Orobo" (full figured) Versus Team Lepah (slim)

Team Natural hair Versus Team Weave (be it Brazilian or synthetic!)

Team low cut hair Vs Team Mami wata (mermaid) length hair

Team fitness freak Vs Team sit-on-the-bench

Team I-have-reached-the-peak of-my career Vs Team I-am-just-getting-by.

Team Aje butter (please google) Vs Team Aje paki (for definition kindly phone a friend or ask audience)

Team Domestic goddess Vs Team honey-lets-eat-out!

You should hear some of the arguments we have when trying to put our diverse points or views across, but the main thing is that we strive to maintain our individuality.

The problem starts when people feel the need to copy the Baloguns without applying reason. 

It is really cool and particularly clever when makeup is applied in such a skilful manner that a woman's features are accentuated to their full potential. But it gets somewhat awkward when we have a group of 'sisters' at those numerous social functions we attend, all looking like genetically modified mannequins, same arched shape eyebrows drawn with military precision, lips out lined with red lipstick on the outside and lighter shade inside, hair weave same length, sourced from same vendor, with closure on same side of head, gele (head wrap) tied same style, bodies shaped & contoured with same brand of 'body magic' (formerly know as girdle!), 

"Ms Fire-by-force-I-must-look-like-Beyonce Balogun" what happened to maintaining your own style? I often browse through online sites that cover our fashion, but after a while I'm bored and dizzy looking at identical made-up faces and outfits.

Social media platforms have further fuelled The Balogun persona. Don't we all love our selfies? Guilty as charged, if I do post a pic on any platform (excluding Facebook, I'm not on Facebook) I do want to look 'tight', 'cute smile', 'little pout', 'pull tummy in' 'pretend pic was taken casually and no such effort has been made' etc etc. Where I do feel we start to move into mucky water though is when we take it up a notch and start showing off the wonderful lives, all the wonderful gifts from spouse, partner, friend or boo. Every detail of Junior's teething, toilet and feeding habits out there for all on sundry. Forgetting that less is more! Please keep it for, A night with Jonathan Ross, Oprah or Moments with Mo!

And to further buttress this point, Chambers Dictionary recently nominated the word "overshare" as the word of 2014, “we’re revealing more now than we ever have done before”, according to the dictionary and overshare” is defined “to be unacceptably forthcoming with information about one’s personal life" 

This oversharing often leads to a certain type of person feeling insecure, people need to stop comparing themselves. The Baloguns' will always be there so we need to learn not to care about them. And as prophetic lyrics of Fela's 'Mr Follow-Follow' go:

"If you dey follow-follow dem book.......na inside cupboard you go quench.."

So please let's take a deep look in the mirror, seek for the value within ourselves, chillax and be happy!

Thanks again for the comments, follows and feedback, they make this all so interesting. Sorry to digress but commentator Anonymous ( 2nd Feb @ 20:23) on my post Because I'm Your Mother That's Why! Really made me laugh out loud when they added a boiling ring to our hamper! That's one item I had not thought about in years and I had a tough time explaining to my daughter what one was! I googled to see if I could show her an image but couldn't find. I wonder whether it was an innovation made solely for the Naija Market. 

Also a big shout out to my daughter for editing the licence plate of that custom-made vehicle that takes pride of place at top of this post!

Anyway folk, have a great weekend. See you next Friday.

If you don't like my story, write your own ~ Chinua Achebe