Artistes versus bloggers: The fear of the unknown

Posted by: stiphbami in NaijaVibe.Net Mar 13, 2013

The first time I ever wrote an article online for the public to read, I went through the page every day searching for a comment that would say, �Who is this guy writing rubbish”. I did not see a thing like that neither did I see a comment at all and the space for comments lay fallow till date, no one has posted a comment on that article.
I could have stopped writing, because I have always heard that there are lots of readers online and they actually post comments after reading.

While thinking, I likened my article to the gossips that fly around town, most people hear it and say nothing, while those that talk, just spread the rumour without dropping a comment. Perhaps they were spreading my little beginning, preparing a ground to make it big.
Our deepest fear as bloggers is the number of people that visit our sites, the number of people that read articles without downloading the media attached to it, and the number of people that will like what we do to the extent of paying us.
Sometimes we lie about the number of visitors we have, other times we trick our visitors by posting a blank shortened link for the same person to open the link over again. Do we still count them as visitors when they are better called passersby? That’s a trick that will always live on.
Bloggers can go any length for traffic, just like politicians, who can say anything for a vote. After all it is a game of numbers.
Web designers are helping the bloggers to rig the traffic counters by designing counters that can be altered. Sometimes an article posted 10 minutes ago will be showing 2000 readers, and the fact that such number of people have read the article, will always make one want to know the special thing about that article.
Bloggers would smile and called it a trick; can Transparency International categorize this as corruption?
The first time I went to the studio to sing, I saw a lot of guys correcting me, telling me how to sing and the right words to choose on my lyrics for my song to become a hit. And while there in the recording boot, I asked myself if a candle can power a bulb. These guys are not yet stars, yet they know what I can do to become a star, they have not recorded a hit, yet they know I can record one.
I then asked myself, who decides if a song will be a hit.
Because promotions on radio and TV are expensive, artistes especially those at the upcoming level choose the internet to promote their songs and this will take us to the class of two Titans.
The pain of every blogger is activated when an artiste asks him for free promotion. I am a blogger in that respect and even though I don’t really see this as a pain, every blogger needs to make money.
A popular bloggers’ Blackberry display picture reads �I am a publicist that does not mean that I do free jobs, I have bills to pay just like you”
The artistes believe that when their songs are posted on music blogs, they will draw traffic to these blogs, in that case most of them believe that bloggers need traffic more than money, a funny notion bloggers consider as the biggest insult they receive from artistes.
Just like the TV station in my state would prefer to play musical videos from foreign and popular artistes who do not know them for a whole day, but when an upcoming artiste knocks on their door, an unaffordable price list is placed in front of him.
That takes me to the major question upcoming artistes have not noticed, �How can we pay for the services rendered to stars?”
I was in a radio station recently, and was so surprised to hear a presenter repeat MI’s song in a space of 30 minutes. I was impressed and asked them how they can help promote artistes in the state and what I saw on a paper pasted on the wall means MI has gone in a debt of about N6000 for the track that was played twice. When I asked why, the manager told me �We have bills to pay”
Another fear of a blogger is when two days will pass without a single material going on his blog and to this end, the known artistes are used to fill their blogs. Their tweets are news even when they are meaningless. These bloggers go to the length of posting the bedrooms of artistes probably �Wizkid shows off his bedroom”. They struggle to be the first to share the image, and they broadcast on blackberry, twitter and facebook as if it’s a life changing story.
I simply call it helping those who don’t need help.
As bloggers, we prefer to help the stars for free because another fear we have is that when these upcoming artistes eventually make it, they will never need us again.
I call all these blank fears, simple fear of the unknown.
Because of this we want to sap them, hoping to live to tell the tale of when a particular star was on his knees probably begging us to manage the little recharge card he can afford.
In case you are a blogger reading this, don’t call me a snitch yet, just get to the end of this article and I am sorry for the anger it will cause you.
Why would an artiste who spent so much to record a song come to beg bloggers, and when they yield to his plea, he ends up insulting them. Sometimes artistes go as far as telling bloggers that their sites cannot pull enough traffic.
An artiste once told me that �Notjsutok and 360nobs get more than 2 million visitors a week and why would someone like you who can’t measure up to 10000 a month ask for money” I didn’t feel insulted, I just asked him to mail me the song, when he sent it, I replied thus �You are stupid, the right email address should be notjustok or 360nobs”. He is still on my Blackberry list but has never said a word to me since then and right now he is a blogger.
Sometimes artistes feel they are not too good and need bloggers to help say what they are not, other times; bloggers believe that if they don’t publish materials from the stars who do not know them, they will never get the traffic they need.
This is mostly a case of confusion where both artistes and bloggers do not know what they want.
I call all these blank fears, simple fear of the unknown.
Because of this we want to sap them, hoping to live to tell the tale of when a particular star was on his knees probably begging us to manage the little recharge card he can afford.
In case you are a blogger reading this, don’t call me a snitch yet, just get to the end of this article and I am sorry for the anger it will cause you.
Why would an artiste who spent so much to record a song come to beg bloggers, and when they yield to his plea, he ends up insulting them. Sometimes artistes go as far as telling bloggers that their sites cannot pull enough traffic.
An artiste once told me that �Notjsutok and 360nobs get more than 2 million visitors a week and why would someone like you who can’t measure up to 10000 a month ask for money” I didn’t feel insulted, I just asked him to mail me the song, when he sent it, I replied thus �You are stupid, the right email address should be notjustok or 360nobs”. He is still on my Blackberry list but has never said a word to me since then and right now he is a blogger.
Sometimes artistes feel they are not too good and need bloggers to help say what they are not, other times; bloggers believe that if they don’t publish materials from the stars who do not know them, they will never get the traffic they need.
This is mostly a case of confusion where both artistes and bloggers do not know what they want.
An artiste who is not yet known on the streets he walks every day, is looking for national recognition online, same with bloggers who believe they can get national recognition by posting materials about national stars which did not originate from your site.
Bloggers, radio and TV stations should know that they are placed in a certain locality for a reason, they should therefore work out a flexible plan that will help develop the artistes in their various states or cities. Your street credibility sends your name beyond your state.
A famous man who is not yet known in his land has a hanging fame.
I talk more about the bloggers because the bulk of the jobs to be done in making this relationship better lie on them. The dream of every bloggers should be to make stars, because when you can do that, stars will still need you to remain a star. The fear of every star is waking up and realizing that he is no longer as popular as he used to be.
Maryanne Williamson wrote �Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness, which frightens us most.
We ask ourselves, ‘Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, and famous?’ Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that people won’t feel insecure around you. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It’s not just in some of us; it’s in all of us. And when we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others”

The unknown we all fear is to people rise above us while we are still where we are, we fear making people popular while we are still not known beyond our city.
We fear helping people make money, when we still don’t have money.
The world is filled with people because we will surely need each other, someone will surely climb to the next level with you, while you will climb with someone else, all we have to is realize that as long as we are willing to give out something, we will surely receive something.
For a blogger, be unique and do your thing in a way that will make you relevant to both stars and upcoming artistes.
Artistes should also know they are not doing bloggers any favour when their materials are posted online. Learn to be grateful and reasonable so that bloggers will learn to give help to the right people. Remember that just like you, he still has bills to pay.
Now we know who the tigers and anacondas in our nightmares are, it then means that the mountains we see are just a little pavement we must climb to get to the realm of success.

Let us make more stars.
Now you know it, you are the unknown, turn your scream to smile, turn your darkness to light, for we are meant to be our own best friends, not our own fear factor.
I love you.

Chinedu Hardy Nwadike
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08136723796
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@hardynwa