Trend Obsession

Also published in DAILY TRUST

Though it is quite natural for human beings to love and pursue new and trendy things all the time, it needs not to be excessive. Ironically, despite the grinding poverty that relentlessly unleashes misery all over the land, an average Nigerian is trend-obsessed.

This phenomenon could be attributed to the rampancy of showoff attitude among many Nigerians, irrespective of their socio-economic conditions, which has created an atmosphere of unnecessary struggle among people to outclass one another in appearance and possession of trendy stuff, most of which are of little value for them.

Being ordinarily an attitude of the rich, one really wonders how it becomes so entrenched in a society where the vast majority is wallowing in acute poverty. Unfortunately, in the current age of materialism, appearance and possession of trendy things play a role in the way people assess and indeed handle one another. It is obvious that this phenomenon in Nigerian is quite disproportionate compared with the people’s socio-economic conditions.

As a matter of fact, there seems to be social stigma of a sort unnecessarily created and attached to being outclassed in appearance and possession of trendy stuff. This explains why values like moral integrity, professional competence and other worthwhile potential hardly count in dealing with individuals in the country.

Such stigma manifests itself in different ways: for example, how at a given time a particular type of item, which might have been trendy in the recent past, comes to be derided over time, hence the person still using it is disdained and mocked. Also such stuff are given different derogatory names at given times, which puts pressure on those who still have it to get rid of it and acquire the trendy ones at any cost – of course, before the same fate befalls the newly acquired too.

Interestingly enough, some derogatory names given to some stuff have over the time come to define them to the extent that one can hardly identify them with their actual brand names. For example, in Kano, and perhaps beyond, a car with a particular body shape is popularly called “bana ba harka” which literally means things have gone bad this year; and in essence it means that the owner of that particular car used to be financially better off before but has now suffered a serious economic set back hence settled for it.

Likewise, there were some particular types of clothing fabrics, which were trendy before, only to dramatically lose ground attracting ridicule to its users, for example, “bambalasta”, “kampala” etc.

Moreover, with the emergence of GSM technology, obsession with trendy phone sets seems to relentlessly put pressure on many people to consistently look forward to changing their phone sets in their desperate effort to avoid the stigma of being outclassed by colleagues and friends.

Anyway, predictably as everybody becomes desperate to avoid such so-called stigma at all costs, pursuit of life endeavors has become largely showoff-oriented at the expense of pursuing excellence. This also affects how people set their order of priorities and by implication affects the value and quality of their productivity, and indeed their chances of achieving their potential.

It is quite ironic that an average Nigerian’s obsession with trendy stuff exceeds that of an average man in many rich countries, who is at least not poor by world standard and is indeed very rich compared to his Nigerian counterpart.

The Nigerian’s unjustifiable trend obsession is perhaps comparable only with that of celebrities, who are in any case few and wealthy even by the standards of their largely rich countries and societies. After all, considering the nature of their professions as celebrities, acquiring expensive trendy stuff or even influencing the trend itself could be (to some extent) understandable.

For instance, I am currently based in a country where the best trendy international brands engage in a fierce competition for market share due to the country’s enviable international commercial competitiveness and attractiveness, yet many visiting Nigerians from Nigeria amaze me a lot when I hear how they talk about and indeed look for different international brands most of which I have never heard of, as though they come from Milan, Paris or Chicago.

As a matter of fact, the current trend in clothing amongst an increasing number of Nigerians is not only to acquire foreign clothing fabrics, but to also send their fabrics all the way from Nigeria to Dubai to get it sewed for them by tailors in Dubai and then take it back to them in Nigeria.

In any case, though this class of people could fit into the category of the rich at least by Nigerian standard – after all they are at least wealthy enough to afford international travel – there are many others, who simply overstretch themselves in order to match up with this trend at all costs.

It is noteworthy that a poor yet trend-obsessed person hardly, if at all, gets his priorities right, hence he often beats about the bush and leads an aimless lifestyle. He simply wastes his already scarce resources to acquire what he does not actually need, while neglecting some essential needs, which he has to attend to.

Furthermore, he seems to be too naïve to realize the fact that in reality it is one’s status in the society that actually attracts people’s inquisitiveness in his wears and possessions; and they actually estimate their values accordingly. 

For instance, a rich person can use a cheap Chinese-made Blackberry-looking phone and yet make people believe that it is even the latest model of its kind, while, on the other hand, his poor counterpart could somehow manage to get some money and buy the genuine one, yet he can hardly, if at all, impress anybody because it is already presumed that (going by his status) the phone is simply a fake Chinese-made product.

Trend obsession is even worse in religious activities and other acts of worship, because a person involved in it will not only lose the appropriate rewards attached to the particular worship rite in question, but will in addition to that incur a very grievous sin.

For instance, things like trip to Mecca for Umrah or Hajj, animal sacrifice during Eid Al Adha, generosity particularly in Ramadan etc, are unfortunately undertaken and done by many people out showoff and rivalry.