Did you know that there are approximately 4.66 billion active internet users worldwide? Can you imagine all the different ways in which we all use the internet? Obasanjo’s Internet is our interview series where we speak to some of our internet favourites on how they relate to the internet and what it means to them and their work. This week, Taiwo Adeyemi, Talent Manager and Chief Curator at Losing Daylight talks to us about how he uses Obasanjo’s Internet.
What’s the first thing you do when you wake up?
I check my phone to see if it has battery life.
How do you use the internet for work or pleasure?
For both. I don’t have an office and I don’t have tools asides from the internet. I’m a talent agent which means I’m constantly on the phone, negotiating deals or chasing down opportunities and all of that. And there’s none of those I can do without the internet, either in sending contracts or editing contracts or working on Notion or Google or whatever it is. That’s really what the work is. Aside that I also do a very unhealthy amount of research – again, Internet. I’m reading up stuff, visiting websites, reading articles and blogs. I’m just constantly researching. So that’s really what I do for work with the internet.
But for play, I don’t even know if it’s play but I watch a lot of YouTube and it’s a mixture of so many things. I can just watch funny videos, short films, keynote addresses. So again, I don’t know if that’s work or play, but it’s really not as tasking as the other side of things.
What moment or episode in your life would you say captured the essence of the internet?
Every damn time. It’s probably the greatest invention ever made – very closely followed by the airplane. But it’s one of those two things I am constantly in awe of because I grew up when the internet was just being introduced and it was for the very few rich and wealthy people. I saw when it became democratized and accessible to everybody, you know.
Whenever I think of something and I’m looking for a reference, I can easily just put www.something and I see what I’m looking for. I never get used to the fact that this is information at the fingertips.
So it is really every time. Half of my family are not in Nigeria and I witnessed when you had to wait for a mailbox to communicate but now you can literally just do a WhatsApp call and you’re talking to your nieces in America. It’s very special. Every single time I remember that if not for the internet, this thing would not be happening, I’m always very grateful and I think it’s just the beginning because nobody has an idea of what the Metaverse and World Web 3 has in store for us.
Your favourite social media platform and why?
I have my community in different places. So I can’t really specify on one, but right now I’m feeling Instagram because I mean I’m just spending more time on Instagram. But it constantly changes. Everything has its own use. I also really like Pinterest. That would be a very close second and Twitter is also up there. I learn a lot of things on Twitter.
What was the last meme you saved?
Do you remember the first time something you posted went viral? What was it? How did it make you feel?
That’s definitely Twitter. I’ve had a couple of viral moments to be fair. I’ve been on Twitter since 2009 or 2010 so it’s been a minute. I think the one that I remember right now was a question and it just went everywhere. I don’t know why. It made me feel like ok, maybe I’ve arrived, but I later realized that it meant nothing. Recently I responded to somebody’s tweet that was on every blog also. I think that was to Tosin’s tweet, when she was talking about how saving money is now a problem because what you’re saving for becomes more expensive when you’re ready to buy it. And I responded saying patient dog don get ulcer or something like that.
Patient dog don get ulcer. https://t.co/DtS9cPoBbV
— Taiwo (@OgaBoxx) October 25, 2023
So I don’t really know what informs this thing. I really just say whatever I want to say and it doesn’t make me feel any type of way. I understand how the internet works. So I can’t feel special because a tweet went viral. Nobody knows me.
What’s the most outrage you have ever generated over something you posted? How did you react to it?
Nah, I’m a very quiet guy. You know what Yorubas call ‘omo jeje’. I don’t put myself in those kinds of positions but I can’t tell my internet story without saying this – I once shut down a bank. Literally. And it was Twitter that made me do that.
You know how banks behave; you send money, it doesn’t go through or something happens, they tell you 7 days then don’t refund you and all of that. That kind of escalated because I was waiting months and months and months to get this money back.
At the time I had some form of government affiliation so I got power drunk and went to the bank with my other friend who was also in government. It was supposed to be a very quiet meeting but then the customer service lady was rude, literally flinging papers at me because she was clearly having a bad day. I took a photo of her, went on Twitter and I said everything possible. I was so angry. It went so viral that the bank had to close down for that day. I was invited back by the branch manager and I returned with my lawyer.
The issue was being posted on every blog you can imagine and people were corroborating my experience because apparently the lady whose photo I posted was well known in that branch for that behaviour. 90% of people were dragging that bank saying, “yes, they are finally getting what is coming from them” blah blah. Yeah, there was like 10% of why did I put her face out there. As a matter of fact, I got sued. that’s why I said it was a very big drama and it was a social media drama. Linda Ikeji called me, blogs were calling me to talk about my experience. That would never have happened if I was not on social media.
I got my money back. I became like a VIP customer. Every time I went back there, the door was slammed open. I didn’t queue for anything anymore. But, yeah, that was cool. I would never do that again, anyway.
What rules do you live by on the internet?
Number one, I don’t fight with strangers. Number two, I don’t argue with strangers. Number three, I don’t go back and forth with strangers. I’m the kind of person that if I see a post from someone I know that no really make am, I can reply it and we can engage each other because I have a relationship with them. If the conversation goes south, I can always call them on the phone, right? But I just can’t get past arguing with a complete stranger whose legs might be on the wall. I don’t know who I’m talking to. So generally, if I respond to somebody I don’t know and they respond back to me and I see that this conversation is already… I just leave it entirely. It’s a rule. I don’t really argue with strangers.
When I used to, again, it put me in a lot of trouble. There’s just really no point to it for me.
What is your guiltiest online pleasure?
I like words a lot. I have an unhealthy amount of screenshots of words I find on the internet. I’m not a poet or anything – maybe it’s because of my advertising background – I just really like words and I collect a lot of words. It can be something inspiring, it can be something morbid, it can be anything. If it’s just well worded, I take a screenshot and I can spend a long time doing that.
My other guilty pleasure is watching everything watchable on YouTube. I don’t have a genre of content I consume on the internet. Today you can see me watching Nicole while tomorrow you can see me watching Hiroshima War. I’m just consuming information voraciously because I’m a sucker for knowledge and all of that. So the internet gives me the opportunity to do that. I can have so many things on my to-do list and I’ll just be immersed in that rabbit hole of content and I can be there for 5/7 hours. I don’t think there’s any guilty pleasure that’s more than just consuming too much of one thing.
Would you say you have an online persona?
Nah. If you know me personally, and you check my tweets today, you will see that there’s no persona. I tweet in my local language a lot because I speak my local language a lot, you know.
Maybe on Instagram though – so again, this question is very specific to different platforms. I’m very carefree on Twitter. I don’t care, I speak, I do anything I want to do. On Instagram, I’m a bit more curated because I teach and I’m a thought leader in my own right. Some people pay a lot of money to listen to me. So you want to make sure that you are well communicated and well positioned as the thought leader or as the creative person that you say you are. So that might be some sort of persona. I won’t say that’s not who I am, but that’s a bit more curated.
What’s your favourite emoji and why?
I think I use the skull emoji the most. It’s a response to everything that does not have a response. If it can be funny, it can be “what the fuck is this person saying?” I use it a lot and then obviously the cry laugh emoji or whatever it is.
Are you particular about your feed?
Instagram, just a little bit.
YouTube or TikTok? Which do you prefer and why?
YouTube. Just because of their long form content. TikTok is a baby. I mean, it’s like comparing night and day. TikTok is trying – I like short form content and what they’re trying to achieve but YouTube is an institution. It’s like a university and I want to just sit and consume long form. Easily YouTube.
Which Nigerian creator do you think the world needs to see and hear more of?
Salem King.
Who is the coolest person you follow and the coolest person who follows you?
Do you know how hard this question is? Julia Adenuga is the coolest person I follow. I was trying to hope that this interview does not come out and then my girlfriend says Julia Adenuga again. But anyway, that’s the fact. She is the coolest person I follow. I absolutely love her.
Who is the coolest person that follows me? Mehn so many cool people follow me. Yvonne Orji and Don Jazzy follow me, but I don’t want to mistake cool for famous. There are really cool people in the art and creative community that I really admire. So many cool people follow me. Don’t let me single one person out.
What is your favourite Nigerian podcast?
This is a very tricky question. Let me not put myself in trouble. I Said What I Said.
Have you ever hooked up with someone you met online? Did you regret it
Yes. 100% for both. You always regret it. Don’t try this at home kids.
5 people you’d love to see answer these questions
I can give you a hundred. Tomiwa Sage, Dabest, Tosin Ajibade, Demi Banwo, Nicole Asinugo