AVANT GARDE

Books, Wine and everything in between.

[Yehgha @yaygha]

Allow me give a not so brief history lesson so we can all understand what is going on here.

For much of European history, pale skin was a marker of status. An elite woman was supposed to have skin that had barely been under the sun because pale skin signalled she did not work outdoors.

In a world where most people spent their lives labouring under the sun to survive, avoiding the sun was evidence of wealth.

The rich could stay indoors and send the poor outside to work for them. This is why they wore gloves and wide hats when outside. It is also where the term blue blood comes from; rich families who never did physical labour and thus were rarely in the sun had skin so pale the veins underneath would show.

So to be tanned meant to do outdoor labour, and to do outdoor labout meant to be poor.

But as the industrial revolution came around and factories multiplied, the poor who had previously laboured outdoors were pulled indoors to work in factories, workshops and later offices rather than under the sun

And their skin became paler.

Now if the poor could become pale skinned simply by working indoors, then pale skin could no longer communicate wealth, so the elite abandoned the old signal and switched to a new one: tanned skin.

Because now it meant only they had the time and money to lie in the sun while everyone else worked indoors.

Pale meant rich, tanned meant poor. Then pale meant poor so the rich did a 180 and went back to tanned.

That is exactly the same thing that is happening here. Wiresless ear buds generally, and airpods specifically meant rich. Wired earphones meant poor.

Then when everyone could afford wiresless ear buds and their replica knock-offs, wireless meant poor and the 'rich' who differentiated themselves with wiresless in the past, switched back to wired.

It is not because they "got tired of charging their wireless earbuds"

Away from the history lesson, the broader explanation is that humans crave to be seen. We do not want to go through life unnoticed. This is why we do only spend money to enjoy ourselves, we spend money so that others can see us spending money.

And one of the most common, socially acceptable ways of doing so is through the things we wear. For example. We do not spend money on watches that could buy a car so we can check the time. We spend that money so others can see that we spent money.

The point of the spending is the spending witnessed.

And with that, we signal that we are high status and that signal brings us attention .

But this flex has a fundamental flaw in the sense that the moment the status signal works, those below begin to copy it until it loses its utility.

So what happens to a status marker when those below can afford it too?

Simple; those above abandon it.

In conclusion, The things we buy, wear, drive, or use are driven by 1) the desire to belong and 2) the desire to stand out.

You want to look like the people above you to feel among, but you also want to look different from the people below you to stand out.

So the rich adopt a signal
The wannabe middle class copies it
And the majority poor copy the wannabes

And once the signal becomes widespread enough, it stops doing the job it was intended to do. Then the elite abandon it and look for a new one.

Sometimes they move to something more expensive or difficult to acquire. Sometimes they move to something obscure enough that the wannabes and the poor can't even grasp it. And sometimes, as with tanning and wired earphones, they do a 180 and move in the opposite direction.

It happens with clothes, bags, earphones, restaurants, language and so on.

The rich keep moving. The middle class keeps chasing, and the poor keep copying. And the markers of status keep changing. And on and on and on it goes.

[Jesi @jesidamina]

Not to be that person, but our literary/visual understanding of romantic expressions as Africans are very much defined by white standards. Yes, even in love, we are colonised.

Otherwise what concerns an African woman with hair tucking? Her Afro (or braids) don’t move that way 😭

[𝓟𝓻𝓲𝓷𝓬𝓮𝓼𝓪 🐸 @princesalamwane]

THIS !!!!

[TobyWrites @tobyasky]

I love Twitter, community notes have been added.

If you're a tourist, go to South Africa at your own peril.

They've signed Trevor Noah to brainwash the ignorant populace, but when it comes to Nigeria, he will make jokes that dents our reputation.

This isn't even a band for band situation, if you love your life, do not go to South Africa. They do not hide the fact that they h@te foreigners. They're also very lazy, they'll steal from you and take your life, they have no remorse. Avoid that country.

[bandito💜 | comfort food @ogheneyxle]

everybody go be initiator today or mock the ladies that initiate, depending on which thought leader replies first

[체렐 🦂| 맞아 @cherrmrsssi]

Almost every single day I get online, there’s a story about a white man killing his entire family. There’s an obvious epidemic, yet this demographic is not labeled as violent. If this were a Muslim or a Black man, it would be a different story.

[Adverbial-Motion @adverbialmotion]

He said it all.

[✮ 🅡🅘🅞🅣 ✮ ☽☾ ⚭ @rrriot_kitty]

Men treat their wives and girlfriends like this and then blame feminism for making them lonely.

[Elyon @0xkitng]

One thing I have observed in Nigeria is that when many people are contracted or entrusted with a responsibility, they do the job just well enough to meet the immediate requirement, while expecting someone else to deal with the consequences later.

I think this is the same pattern we often see in government. Projects are executed in a way that serves the immediate objective, even when those responsible know the quality is not good enough to deliver long term value.

The mindset is simple: by the time the problems begin to show, they will be someone else’s responsibility.

[DewunmiOfLagos💕 @Society8Wunmi]

I went to Yaba today, and this guy and I boarded the same keke (napep). Immediately he got in, he brought out his laptop and started working. While working, he was making business calls. I couldn't help but overhear parts of the conversation.
He kept saying things like, "I've worked on it," and "I'll send it in the next 30 minutes." You could tell he was really focused and trying to meet deadlines.

He was the third person to get down from the keke. As he crossed to the other side of the road towards UBA, just after YABATECH, a danfo bus suddenly hit him and sped off without stopping.

Everything he was carrying scattered across the road. 💔 He got up immediately and started picking up his things. The bus hit his leg, and he was limping.
I just hope he's okay🥹

[Nisa ♀ @nisafeminista]

She was killed by him right after she made this video exposing him for being a pedophile.

And THIS is why women it takes years for women to come forward. She refused to stay silent, and it cost her her life.

[Slim @onu_slim]

In 2002, my father was processing my sister’s visa.

One of the requirements was a Police Character Certificate.

He visited a state police headquarters to ask about the process.

A police officer told him it could only be processed in Lagos. He asked my sister to place her fingerprints on a sheet of paper and said he would transfer them onto the official certificate.

He said the fee was N262,000.

My father paid.

Two weeks later, my father returned to collect the document. What he received was a locally stamped paper with what looked like a criminal registry stamp. There was no signature from the Inspector General of Police or anything that suggested it was an official certificate.

Not knowing any better, my father submitted it with my sister’s visa application alongside other documents.

Her visa was refused.

One of the reasons given was that the police certificate could not be verified.

My father went back to the State Police Headquarters to ask what was wrong with the document.

The moment the same officer saw my father, he informed his other colleagues and their demeanor changed.

He then told my father to wait while he “checked something”.

Minutes later, another officer returned and loudly accused my father of forging a fake police report, calling on other officers to arrest him.

Imagine that.

The same institution that collected his money was now trying to make him the suspect.

Fortunately, my father immediately called a former Assistant Inspector General of Police he knew.

The atmosphere changed.

Afterward, my father received threats that if he ever returned to that station, he would be arrested.

That experience stayed with me.

It is one of many reasons I struggle whenever I hear the slogan, “Police is your friend”.

This was my family’s experience, and it left a lasting impression on us.

So “Police is not my friend”.

[Outlaw. @wholelif3]

I’m not even laughing I’m scared.

[Uncle Ruckus @Emarged]

This tragedy did not even make the news. What’s the value of the average Nigerian life?

[Moyò of Lagos @Moyo_VIP]

Glorifying fraud and doing PR for convicts reflects our values as a society.

[AVANT GARDE @keren_adele]

All the dangerous encounters that Odysseus and his men faced occurred because they were looking for food 😭😭
#theodyssey

[𐌁𐌉Ᏽ 𐌕𐌉𐌌𐌉 @OrevaZSN]

“The Odyssey movie isn’t accurate.” Accurate to what? My brother, The Odyssey wasn’t even accurate when it was written.

[Batto @Batto079]

Bro watching The Odyssey inside the Trojan Horse.

[𐌁𐌉Ᏽ 𐌕𐌉𐌌𐌉 @OrevaZSN]

I saw someone say, “No spoilers for The Odyssey.” Brother, you’ve had 3,000 years to read the book.

[ada enechi @adaenechi]

Forever thinking about the women in The Odyssey:
- Penelope willing to let her kingdom crumble because she wants her man back. Real.
- Calypso meeting a man so fine she allows his CPTSD to continue so he never leaves her. Real.
- Circe hating all men because of the evil they have done so takes exposing them into her own hands. Real
- Athena haunting a man so bad his brain breaks until he can understand the error of his ways. Real
- Helen not letting people forget they were using her as excuse to move mad but are too cowardly to admit it. Real.