Canadian-Iraqi singer Ali Gatie’s What If I Told You I Love You is one of many 60-second soundtracks underlying some of Tik Tok’s most viral videos. In one such video, Nigerian Catholic priest, Rev. Fr. James Nwachukwu Anyaegbu is dancing to the song, a remixed version comprising ad-libs and a midtempo beat similar to the […]
The BackEnd explores the product development process in African tech. We take you into the minds of those who conceived, designed and built the product; highlighting product uniqueness, user behaviour assumptions and challenges during the product cycle. — On Wednesday afternoon, Instagram users in Nigeria noticed something: when you upload the picture of the bloodied […]
On a chilling livestream on Instagram by DJ Switch, a Nigerian DJ and songwriter, over 130,000 people watched the slow, painful death of a young Nigerian protester on Tuesday, October 20, 2020. According to eyewitnesses, the victim had been shot by a soldier of the Nigerian Army. A unit had descended on Lekki toll gate […]
For a documentary proposing big-picture diagnoses of social media’s effect on the world, The Social Dilemma barely takes the 1.2 billion people in Africa into consideration. The 93-minute Netflix Original documentary dramatizes the backend of social media platforms as a dystopian neuroscience lab. Among other things, it shows how digital juices are used to incite […]
Flora* met Dan* mid last year on Instagram and they both kicked it off responding to each other’s stories and sending occasional chats. A three-week workshop, followed by an internship at his organisation in June last year was the first time they would meet physically. While a relationship has yet to blossom and there has […]
When we spoke with web founder, Sir Tim Berners-Lee in 2019 about the future of the web, he said, “I don’t know which way we’ll go because I don’t know if we’ll be able to focus and iron out all the bumps.” Not only are there a lot of bumps to iron out regarding how […]