If you want an understanding of how media has changed over the last 10 years, then all you need to do is look at influencers. Once a small niche, influence has become the mainstay of the media industry and the main motivation for audiences to turn on their televisions waste a few megabytes of data and subscribe to a new streaming service.
Influencers have become such a big deal because the way we consume entertainment, news and information has changed drastically. Before, entertainment came in funnels, funnels referring to mediums through which we could access media. There used to only be television, radio and cinema. And these funnels were managed by certain individuals and corporations, who decided who they would give a platform.
But then the internet attacked, democratizing the process of consuming information. We were no longer limited by the schedules of the gatekeepers. We could not only consume what we wanted when we wanted, but we could also demand what we wanted. That means, all creators needed to do, was convince us to sponsor their projects. Websites like Patreon purely to democratize this process.
It has taken Nigerian creators a while, but our celebrities and media personalities are entering into this very precarious space and courting their own audiences. Mimi Onalaja is the latest celebrity to go this route with her new Youtube channel, which she announced today on her Instagram account.
Not exactly sure how this will play out, if it will be a vlog or a proper talk show, but we’ll have to wait and see.
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