Conversing with this man, he must have mentioned at least three or four names of popular socialites, and introduced a friend of his,by mentioning his father’s name and the fact that he lives in a highbrow area.
For some reason, I found the story lines and interactions amongst these characters in the New York social scene pretty interesting and also somehow relatable based on my experiences.
Gossip Girl Addiction.
I spent quite a lot of the time I was supposed to be studying at University watching the television show, Gossip Girl. As much as I disliked many of the characters and tried to deny my addiction to the show, I found myself craving every new episode, and felt a deep void in my life whenever a season ended and I had nothing to look forward to for a prolonged period.
New York and Lagos Social Scenes.
In a way, I think the Nigerian social scene has many elements of that of New York’s from what I saw on Gossip Girl, although many aspects of the socio-economic conditions of the United States and Nigeria are somewhat different; so some things which work over there don’t quite work out the same way here in Nigeria.
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What clique do you belong to?
In this “Gossip Girl frame of mind,” the first thing I was reminded of was cliques in high school. The formation of cliques is pretty much a present in every school around the world. There will always be the ‘cool kids’; the ‘inbetweeners’; the ‘nobodies/losers’; the ‘geeks/nerds’ and the ‘desperate Jenny Humphries’, wannabes who would do just about anything to fit in (but still not quite fit well). To be honest, I found myself experiencing some of these groups at different schools I attended between the ages of 8 and 18.
The school with only one clique.
However, by the time I got to University, this died down a little bit. Initially, I thought it was because at the age of 18, there was a general assumption that people had reached a reasonable stage of maturity. Much to my surprise, I realised later that maybe it was down to the fact that I attended a university where the main entry requirement was GEEK…period. Hence then, I fit in very well with people who were pretty much different versions of myself.
Moving back to Nigeria.
So, I experienced a bit of a culture shock when I moved back to Nigeria after graduation; I was astonished to find out that this cliquey nature, which I thought I had left behind since my A-Levels was very much present in our society, even amongst mature adults.
I have come to terms with the fact that it is inevitable; social stratification will always prevail wherever human beings exist. But for some people, it is taken way too far to the point of wanting so desperately to identify with a certain group of people or clique, they adopt what I call the “Do you know who I am and who I know?” attitude where name-dropping is very prominent in nearly every conversation.
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Name-dropping, a conversation MUST?
A good example of one of my experiences on this subject was on a night out in Lagos. This good-looking young man approached my friends and I and offered us some seats at his table with some of his friends. I thought it was a nice and generous gesture, so we went ahead.
But when I started speaking to him, he must have mentioned at least three or four names of popular socialites in Lagos, even to the point that on introducing a friend of his to me, he did so by mentioning his father’s name, and the fact that he lives in an estate in the high-brow location of Ikoyi (The Lagos equivalent of say, Chelsea in New York).
Mind you, I did not ask this man for any of this information, I’m not sure if it was in a bid to impress me (Jenny Humphrey style), but unfortunately, I don’t think he got his desired reaction from me; a straight face was the best expression I could give him.
Why desperately discriminate or fit in?
Given this interaction and many other experiences I have had, sometimes I just wonder why people feel the need to do this. Is it insecurity? Or is it human nature? Does this go all the way back to history where wars, genocide and slave trade emerged as a result of human beings viewing each other as unequal and couldn’t exist together with their differences?
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I do not see any reason why we should discriminate against people who are not like us or are in a different social class or group for no sensible reason. Neither can I justify why people try so desperately to fit in a certain group or become affiliated with a certain person.
Inevitably, there are and will always be different groups of different people based on mutual interests, friends, families, location and many other factors. Why can’t we just embrace each other and ourselves for who we are?
Oyin Egbeyemi is an engineer-turned-consultant-turned-educationist, runner and writer.