The Sunday News
IN the run-up to and during Easter, I noticed something on social media that had me going wow!
You know, most of us share jokes on social media platforms, especially on Whatsapp and Facebook, to celebrate special events.
And some among us have become experts on that too, so much so that they have minimised all their activity on social media apps to just forwarding these chain messages, and never write anything else, even greetings.
When you get a chain message on whatsapp from these “forwarders” who don’t say anything else, all you can do is just reply: “Kwaaaaaaa!” or “Kikikiki,” depending on how you like your laughing baked.
Sometimes you can just choose to be silent and not acknowledge, and you know what, that does not mean this will be interpreted as a sign of non-appreciation from the other side, as history has taught us that still more messages will keep pouring into your cellphone.
But are there some people out there who just sit and write joke after joke for Whatsapp? I mean, they have to be written by somebody. Isn’t it so, and it’s definitely not Whatsapp doing that.
Okay so we will call these guys Whatsappwrights, just like we call those who write plays playwrights.
Well, I think I am partly a Whatsappwright too, as I have written one or two jokes for the Whatsapp platform before, and one of them was this one:
“Yeahhhh this joke is viral, please share it!”
Yes this was the joke. It’s funny isn’t it? And do you know the answer I got every time I sent it to friends?
“Which joke?” That was the answer, or question that would be fired back, always, and that became the source of my humour. People sometimes are so predictable. And I would answer, “That one, please share it!” Lol.
But there was this one joke that kept coming and coming at me before Good Friday from various friends, most of whom thought I had not yet received it, and this was what had me going wow!
Imagine this. If that joke, which I am sure found its way into millions of cellphones all over the world via Whatsapp, had been on sale, say at the least 50 cents per download payable to the person who thought and wrote it up, wouldn’t we be talking about an instant millionaire right now?
And this is the joke, I will copy it just as it came to me:
Wife: Babe, what are your plans for Easter?
Husband: Same plans as Jesus; disappear Friday and re-appear on Monday!
As you will notice, when reading this joke for the first time, it is a gem, was well thought out, and has the appropriate punch line to bring the guffaws — a mark of a great comedian.
But who wrote it? Nobody can tell you, unless if the whatsappwright reads my question and raises their hand, but whoever they are, give the person a Bells please for a job well done!
Looking at this joke, the only thing that we can say takes away its quality is if countless people keep sending it to your cellphone, literally bombarding you with it, and you finally get fed up — but despite that, there is somebody out there reading it for the first time and liking and laughing at it.
And so back to my original thought. Despite our not being able to profit from the jokes we post day in and day out on Facebook or Whatsapp, and getting the world laughing even on dark days, there is somebody out there profiting from our intellectual property, and making billions of dollars from it, isn’t it so?
Well, we have travelled this path before. Imagine getting on stage and telling a joke to a full audience that has paid to watch you, and then at the end of the day you walk home with not even a single penny, and with only the owner of the stage walking home with the bags of money.
That is social media for you. But of course there are some others who know how to make it give them money, or to advance their causes through carefully calculated posts, and the big question is, are you one of those?
This has been an online marketing workshop this Sunday. Hope this will get you thinking next time you click the send button on whatsapp.
Adios!
