Media Flaws

It was a bright breezy Tuesday morning. Nhlanhla Nene, the Financial ‘Chair’person of the Portfolio Committee, had woken up early, optimistic as hell about his 8h30 live TV appearance. His wife had ironed his shirt, suit and even socks the evening before and the kids had been instructed to skip school on that day – daddy was going to be on TV. A number of cellphone calls had been made, possibly rocketing his Vodacom bill by an additional R500 or so, “Comrades tomorrow morning is the day! SABC 2! I’ll be there like a bear!” he haughtily told the listeners on the receiving end of his call.

It was as if his car was standing still as he hit 155km/h speeding past Wits university towards Auckland Park. “When am I getting there!?” as he floored the accelerator on a 60km/h zone, past the sign pointing him to Melville. At last. He was in the parking area. He’d anticipated a crowd to jeer him in to the building and maybe do a couple of autographs, but to his dismay, the SABC’s finances were not favourable to dial Rent-a-Crowd. This didn’t deter Nene as he walked past the reception towards the elevators occasionally quipping “Do you know who I am?” one liners to the security guards who were adamant he signs-in before entry.

At last, at around 8h00, Nene sat next to the presenter – they smeared a bit of Vaseline on his tshis’ kop (bald head) and powdered him up with a bit of Ponds products to lighten him up a bit. We all know cameras aren’t black-skin friendly, one has to manoeuvre the white balance and focus for eons before they can get a black person’s face right on camera, so hence all the make-up. Eventually Nene was pointed in the direction of his chair. He calmly sat and greeted the presenter. “Lights! Camera! Action! ….

Now this is how you make an internet celebrity. For all who ever wondered how they could make their marketing campaigns go viral - take cognisance of the production and dissemination process of this video. Nhlanhla Nene is now a genuine web celebrity. Congratulations!