The BBNaija Rave and the Associated Spinoffs

The scroll through my Facebook timeline this past few weeks and all I see is a long retinue of educated adults arguing and fantasizing about Big Brother Nigeria and it's contestants. Don't get me wrong, If the audience list had been the everyday Naija Facebook teen who rant about "haters" that don't like their post, talk down on them and those weird abbreviations they brandish like WCW, MCM, DSS etc, I would not have bothered but in this case the audience is way different and peculiar.

In my quest to quench and unravel the savour that this BBN brings to their curious eyes that I cannot seem to fathom yet, I went to a public bar around my adugbo where I normally watch my premiership matches to see things for myself. I bought my normal dark Ale stout, balanced myself and started watching football, it was then a prodding thought hit me ' What is the difference between watching Football and Big brother Naija? . I compared this question to what my Ex repeatedly asked me about what I benefited from arguing and watching football every other weekend and I remembered the answer I always give "you will not understand, it is a man-thing", the answer I gave later snowballed into the financial benefits that can accrue from proper forecast and predictions of the matches but that's a topic for another day. To cut the long story short, it got to halftime and BOOM these gentlemen that I thought were with me to have a good Supersport time were screaming the operator should change the channel to BBN pending when the second half starts and I was like WTF, Who does not like the touch-screen half-time analysis, highlights and Goal Rush from those experts?? One of the men who looked married ,YES I saw the ring finger told me when I asked him why he is so keen on watching the program said the most honest words about it. In his words "Bro. Those girls for Big Brother carry oo. Try make you watch am to confirm", his other friends sort of echoed the same sentiment. That was then it hit me somehow the programme sells latent sex as value and it is not any different from porn. Though this is not conclusive yet as different people might have different reasons for watching it but I doubt not so many people will admit this as their reason openly. I won't judge either because we are an open conservative society with closet liberal views. Which is quite weird if you ask me. Not that it comes as a big surprise anyways, I have been around the Web public relations/advertising circles to realise the huge impact a bit of flesh or cleavage can have on a product, sales conversations and brand awareness. It is a hidden advertising rule that if you want sell anything stamp sex on it. Sex in the case can be put mildly or in subtle nuances that pretty much objectify the women folk. And this brings us to its 24Hour airing schedule, I have noticed albeit passively that anything can happen at anytime in anyplace inside the house and this is all within the prying eyes of the young and old viewers. Vulgar words are uttered like it is no man's business and any freaky peekshow can happen in a snap. Nigeria is a society that the PG feature is not used as required, that is if it is being used at all. My humble submission is we soft-pedal on the hype and high ratings surrounding this show since it is not educational or morally upright as such. We should try and confine it to similar late night "shows" and play a bit of public hush-hush like we always do with "things" like that. This BBN thingy is just too everywhere to be honest.