When funny isn’t funny: How “Pulse TV Strivia” preys on the less educated

Pulse strivia

As the internet devolved into a fertile ground for funny Instagram videos, spoofs, and amateur comedians testing out their materials, so came Pulse TV and its brand of vox pop. It’s not exactly an original chop of creativity, given that the vox pop has long since been used as a tool in many forms of media to provide a snapshot of public opinion.

Better known as Pulse TV Strivia, the Pulse brand had found a way to expand its audience bandwidth and crank up social media ratings, and also distinguishing itself in a crowded, monotonous landscape of media content. Pulse TV Strivia worked because of its condensed format: a presenter goes into the street and beguilingly asks ordinary Nigerians on topics that one would deem embarrassing or silly, and these responses are spliced with well-timed gifs.

It’s full-throat entertainment, staged to be reckless and spontaneous, and somehow Pulse managed to revive the dying medium of vox pop and made it a cultural toast. Its celebrity version is a predictable spinoff. And, in 2017, it became such a big deal when Pulse unveiled a final shortlist of 10 contestants for Pulse TV Strivia Search, in efforts to replace alumnus Chuey Chu.

Taken together, however, the essence of the show is rooted in a distressing notoriety, which is the gravitation towards Nigerians who are less educated?. To be clear, I’m using “less educated” as a hyperspecific term for those who, traditionally, weren’t able to complete formal education and this shows in their vocabulary and how they string sentences together, which is usually enough for them to get by.

It should also be mentioned that people who are privileged to go through the full educational throttle don’t necessarily have sharp, intelligent minds, and an aptitude for learning and unlearning. Often, Pulse TV Strivia finds its participants in marketplaces or a buzzy, commercial areas. One of its most-watched episodes – and admittedly funny entry – is “Have You Ever Seen A Female Human?”

Hosted by Pulse TV Strivia Search winner Dark Choc, the episode has 425, 701 views on YouTube, and features in the beginning a fortyish man who genuinely has never seen a female human except the ones he has read in novels. And, towards the end of the episode, a young man who bloops the question by describing the human female anatomy .

Clearly, Pulse TV Strivia knows what it’s doing, gratifying itself on dumpster fire reactions from the less educated while offering in return their fleeting moment of media fame. This has bountifully provided content for Pulse’s TV department, and assisted in the cultural ascendancy of the news platform. Reflectively, though, it leaves a bad aftertaste. How Pulse TV Strivia operates is like incentivising a disabled person to engage in an able-bodied activity, turning their disability into a kind of grotesque entertainment.

Laughing at those who are less educated on vox pop television, even if they are seemingly uncritical and cooperative, is indicative of an impulse to mock those beneath our social strata, and even further indicative of the kind of human beings we are. Other platforms like Delarue TV’s Street Ish and Batta Box have mined this rich vein of street trivia canon for content, but Pulse TV Strivia sits at the apex of the ecosystem. Because it’s funny doesn’t make it right though.

 

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