Every day on the internet, I’m always stumbling on a talk show I haven’t seen before, helmed by young individuals with seemingly fun personalities. Talk shows are becoming a major staple in our digital entertainment diet, with a recognisable youthful aesthetic. But before they attained new cultural levels of ubiquity, non-digital mediums created trademark talk shows that seemed everlasting, and accompanied by a huge viewership.

Broadcast networks like the NTA were in the forefront of family-oriented talk television: Daybreak Nigeria, AM Express, and the popular, groundbreaking New Dawn with Funmi. These shows sustained a nation through political change and turmoil, a post-dawn elixir that was as crucial as breakfast itself. Growing up, I watched a lot of New Dawn with Funmi, and I’d never forget that turning point on the show, when the host and talk high priestess Funmi Iyanda interviewed Bisi Alimi, Nigeria’s first openly gay man.

So what changed since then? Why is the plethora of modern web talk shows so vapidly boring and with no subversive aspects? Put bluntly, almost every talk show I have tried to get into has been yawn-inducing, the hosts are a joke and the topics are recycled. Does body count really matter in a relationship? Can a sex doll replace a real woman? Can you marry someone with body odour? Does size matter? How often should couples have sex in a relationship?

Seriously? OK. I made up the last question, but it’s not exactly far fetched. To clarify, I’m not saying there’s anything wrong in discussing relationships and sex but, come on, we’ve have had enough. Understandably, these talk shows are skewed towards the youth demographic, and plugged into the zeitgeist. I’d admit that some web talk shows quite brazenly deal and explore sex, in a way that old-generation talk shows wouldn’t dare thread. The reason for this is simple, in that talk shows of the early aughts were designed as censored breakfast television, and even independently produced shows like Agatha Amata’s Inside Out was dense, esoteric, and feverishly cult-like, heavily interested in highlighting the malaise and brokenness in the society.

The web can be a wonderful place, making content more accessible and instant. When Ndani TV premiered the first episode of Real Talk in 2015, with Cornelia O’Dwyer as host, it pointed towards a hint of subversiveness. The topic was on abstinence, and it was such a gleefully clever way to talk about sex. Let’s talk about sex, baby. Real Talk was pushing the idea that young people are comfortable enough to discuss their (straight) sexuality – on television. Shot in a restaurant and depicted as friends discussing over drinks, photographer Obi Somto, psychologist Joro Olumofin, and Cool FM’s radio presenter Mercy Ajisafe had interesting, diverging views on the topic.

That episode garnered 38,000 views. Not bad for a fresh show germinating from the prestigious, eternally moneyed Ndani TV. But over a string of episodes, the show’s viewings began to flatline. A huge part of Real Talk’s first season was fraught with staid, mediocre ideas, and it came as no surprise when the show took a temporary break. Its return episode in 2017 didn’t go well, grossly misinforming viewers on consent and rape. “Activist channels like Stand To End Rape and Funmi Iyanda have given quite coherent and explicit explorations of the concept of consent,” writes YNaija’s Edwin Okolo, “and why it’s important that we unlearn the misogynist premises on which most people operate when it comes to consent. But neither activists nor experts were invited to sit in on this episode. Instead they brought DJ Obi, Lola Adamson, Beverly Naya and Eniola Abumere.”

Like Real Talk, Adeolu Adeferasin’s Shop Talk had lean viewership numbers. In fact, the actor’s I-too-must-do-a-talk-show web thing was anaemic, and never exceeded 10,000 views in its first season. Serious Banta, which premiered this year on Arcadia TV, recruited a bunch of rowdy, glossy-tongued young people as hosts and thrust them into harsh lights. And don’t get me started on the bad set furniture! Gidi Bants is, well, Gidi bad. The matrix of atrocious web talk shows is becoming increasingly difficult to circumvent, because there’s a bankruptcy of good, creative writers and content developers.

Of course, these experts can be sourced, talented professionals who can put a whole acute difference in content for these web platforms. But because mediocrity, and pandering to the status quo cost way cheaper, they are never involved in the process of creating refreshing, subversive television. “It’s just about giving the people what they want,” a Ndani TV head staff told me, when I tried to pitch a speculative short film to the brand. I disagree with that monolithic assumption. I think it’s about playing it safe, and being languorously lazy to find out what viewers really want.