Читать книгу Unf*ck Yourself, Unf*ck the World - Kagiso Msimango - Страница 10

In the early stages of the lockdown following the outbreak of the coronavirus in 2020, I spent a lot of time on Twitter. I have since deleted the app and deactivated my accounts, for the sake of my mental and emotional wellbeing. Forrest Gump’s mama described life as being “like a box of chocolates, you never know what you gon’ get.” The description is equally apt for Twitter. On the day I decided to call it quits on Twitter, I came across two very interesting threads. The first was a funny, frivolous share by a guy confessing that when he was young his parents told him that when the ice-cream truck played music, it meant that it had run out of ice cream. Many others came out confessing that they were similarly duped.

The other thread was an entirely different kind of chocolate. This post was from a guy who, presumably frustrated at having to stay at home, was criticising his government’s decision to implement a lockdown. He felt that it was absolutely the wrong approach to dealing with the Covid-19 issue. He opined that the government should have taken a similar approach to Tanzania, which at the time had not implemented a lockdown, adding that the World Bank had praised Tanzania’s approach. This is where it got weird. People commented on his post, as they do on social media. Predictably, some disagreed with his stance. His response to all the dissenters was the same, puzzling, short sentence, “What’s your source?” Nothing else.

One woman responded with a question of her own: “Why do you keep on asking ‘What’s your source?’ He’s his source. He’s his source. She’s her source. I’m my source!” It became clear from his follow-up response that his confidence and certainty were derived from the World Bank stamp of approval of Tanzania’s strategy, and unless you could claim a greater authority you had no business disagreeing with him. Which brings us to our very first adage on unfucking yourself: