I Have A Confession — I Like Beyonce

Don’t take it personally.

I don’t love Beyonce.

I like Beyonce.

And it wasn’t until I started revisiting her songs that I discovered what I was missing about her.

Here’s a silly example.

I assume it’s an adult who’s reading this article, so you’ll be familiar with relationships by now. If you haven’t been in one, then you might have seen several online or on steaming media.

Now, Say My Name is the name of the song. If you’ve never heard it, you can check it out here.

In the song, the ladies urge their partner to say their name. Some words of affirmation. Say I love you. But it’s not forthcoming. That’s the message of the song — say my name.

I had a different perspective.

In my mind, I pictured a baby. Here’s why.

One of my favourite movies, when I was small, was Baby’s Day Out. I have a particular bias toward this movie so much that I have a bone to pick with the local TV stations for picking Home Alone over Baby’s Day Out as the only repeatable Christmas movie.

Now that we’re in the festive season, I hope one of them reads this and suggests a recap of this amazing motion picture.

Well, this movie was so powerful it shaped how I interpreted this song by Destiny’s Child.

Towards the end, the baby is surrounded by elderly men. They sing to it, joyfully, up until their parents arrive. Well, until it’s found.

Replace the elderly men with Michelle, Kelly, and Beyonce. Now they are singing to a child who can’t speak. And in frustration, they urge it:

Say my name, say my name

No one is around you

Say baby I love you

I thought they were urging their child to say its first words.

You get the drift. I was young. My imagination can be wild sometimes.

But other than the misinterpretation, I missed out on the powerful voice of Queen B. Ever since I started appreciating music from a diverse set of perspectives, I have come to love Beyonce’s songs.

If there’s a concert I’d want to attend it’s Beyonce’s. Then I can die in peace.

Fame and success aside, I have a question for you:

If she didn’t have all that she presently has, would you still love her as much as you do or think you do?

I don’t doubt her beauty. I don’t belittler her hard work. I’d be stupid to do that. And I’m not that stupid. Just a wee bit stupid.

But there’s a point I want to make. It has to do with all that surrounds her.

I love Kelly Rowland

Now Kelly I love.

It’s not even because of her hit song with Nelly, which has over 1 billion views. Neither is it the fact that one of them is texting over Excel if you keenly look at the video.

I just loved her face, ever since I was a teenager.

One time, she visited Kenya. I was in primary school back then. What I would give to have seen her, talked to her and just see how the image we see matches the person in reality.

Despite her model-killer figure, amazing facial features, and ebony smooth skin, she is not Beyonce. No point in comparing the two, but again, there’s a point I’d want to make.

Yes, even without her fame and fortune, she would also not have many people storming towards her if she didn’t have what she has.

Maybe a few people, like me, would stare but not too awkwardly.

To drive a subtle point home, let me take you back, yet again, to another experience I had in my childhood.

The mob situation in the city

Going to the city was one of the adventures we would always look forward to.

Yes, adventure.

I’d never get enough of it.

Fries were the highlight. Or, ‘chipo za tao’, as we’d always call them.

However, on several occasions, I’d witnessed the mob decide the fate of a culprit. Usually, someone they believed to be a thief.

Once one person starts hurling blows, kicks, and whatever object they brandished, chanting the vile label ‘thief’ sealed your fate. Because most people had no time to verify, they’d resort to the most common and readily available form of evidence.

Social proof.

It was enough to have others hurl insults and other objects at the person. That was the most immediate proof that the person was a thief. Social proof.

I never heard of any follow-up to validate if the people who were under the mercy of mobs were innocent. Nobody cared.

I think it was a mixed sense of pain from the members for losing items in the past, and a deep-seated need for justice which was often denied if not delayed back then.

Who knows?

The point is once there’s social proof, it’s enough to believe. The crowd has it. If you go against such a crowd, you run the risk of being stoned along with the purported thief. It’s safer to keep quiet.

It’s safer not to reveal that I like Kelly more than Beyonce. But I just said it. Few can attack me from the corner of my bedroom. I won’t die.

Social proof gives Beyonce the much respect she’s given. But to be honest, it’s also evidence of her success. She works tirelessly to deliver quality content.

Social proof is a high signal for validity.

It's one of the reasons I’d want to attend one of her concerts before I die. She’s phenomenal.

We can say the same about David Beckham

Beckham was so popular that when he joined Real Madrid, they had a world tour.

The manager had plans to increase the club's revenue and saw that signing Beckham would be the perfect way to do it. This was despite the presence of the legendary players — Luis Figo, Zidane, Roberto Carlos, and Ronaldo. The original Ronaldo.

Beckham never won the Ballon d’Or. Figo did. Zidane did. So did Ronaldo. The original Ronaldo. Roberto Carlos almost did.

Beckham didn’t.

Anyway, Beckham is a simple guy. If you watch the documentary, you’ll see how much he loves the country life.

Social proof did the validation. The tour streamed in money for the club.

Among us, you might find those who genuinely like Beckham’s game. But then you’ll find those who think differently, those who wouldn’t want to say it in front of a staunch English Football Fan club.

I’ve gone through this windy path to make this simple point — you’ll often like or hate other people because others do.

I like Omotola ’cause people like her

Dbanj said it.

He liked Omotola only because people liked her.

There’s evolutionary relevance in sticking with social proof. You don’t get attacked. You are accepted because you accept the group’s decision.

If not, you’re a weed in need of plucking. Or a foreign object and immune cells will target you.

Several things might get you off the hook if you decide to go against the curve.

The first is easily accessible nowadays — social media. Someone in a single-roomed house with barely a toilet inside it will destroy the night of another living in a mansion simply because the social distance makes individuals bold.

The other way is to have money. F*ck you money. You can say what you say and you can say to whomever who opposes you: F*ck you.

I’m not a fan of either.

I’m a fan of taking responsibility for your words and actions, whether they are under the guise of a random name and avatar on social media or if you’re swimming in cash.

Then again, it could be just because I’m just an:

Oliver, Oliver, Oliver Twist.

But the trouble is I’m just an Oliver Twist.

Who cares about my ideas of social proof?

PS: You might not attend Beyonce’s concert, but you can get value dropped at your email every week, on Sundays, by subscribing to this newsletter. Just so you know, it’s the lightest newsletter on the Internet.