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Summary
Content creator and journalist Charity Ekezie has changed prejudices about Africa, mostly through sarcasm on TikTok. She has urged other social media influencers and media organisations to adopt similar creative strategies to influence change.
Nigerian digital content creator and journalist Charity Ekezie has shared how her work improves Africa’s image and dispels stereotypes about the continent. Since joining TikTok in 2020, the award-winning content creator has had over 3.2 million followers and 200 million views. She also has over 572k followers on Instagram and over 800k subscribers on YouTube.
Speaking about “Digital Creators as Agents of Change” at a virtual session organised by FactMatters NG and Round Check on Nov.1, 2024, the influencer shared that she began engaging in media literacy about Africa after encountering disrespectful and racist content about the continent.
“I had people asking me where they would get water and if they would have to fight lions like we (Africans) do if they came to Africa. Naturally, I got upset about it, but I did not want to address it the normal way, as many others have done. I decided to make them feel dumb without saying they are dumb, which is a very Nigerian thing to do as we are very sarcastic as a people,” she said.
Citing an example whereby she was asked if there was water in Africa, she would usually respond in the negative, telling her viewers that Africans typically survive on saliva in the absence of water, all this while simultaneously showing running water or bottled water somewhere in the background to prove that there is, in fact, water in Africa.
“This approach has been very positive because in as much as it educates people through sarcasm, it has also slowly changed the narratives that outsiders have about Africans,” she stated.
Charity urged mainstream media organisations and other digital creators to adopt creative strategies like she did when sharing information with people to combat mis and disinformation. She said that this would help accurate information spread faster.
