The Problem of Social Media Today

In the past few weeks, an unlikely influencer has achieved a bizarre kind of internet infamy, one predicated on the shock value of his content as opposed to his capacity for entertainment or any noteworthy skill he might possess. His alias? Mr Downloader. If his moniker conjures images of a scraggly hooded nerd, clacking furtively on a keyboard in a bid to bypass a firewall and obtain classified information, your line of thinking—or, perhaps more accurately, imagining—might be justified, nonetheless you couldn’t be more wrong about the man we have under examination. 

The Merriam-Webster dictionary defines the verb download as “an act or instance of transferring something (such as data or files) from a usually large computer to the memory of another device (such as a smaller computer.)” In the hands of Mr Downloader, however, the verb takes on a slightly different meaning, substituting data for food. To “download” in this context therefore means to consume food,  copiously and gluttonously, giving no heed to the part of your brain that says “Maybe we’ve had enough food for now.”

Mr Downloader’s videos follow a simple template. He starts by introducing the items to be downloaded—an obscene quantity of food—then dives headfirst into the task at hand, oftentimes he makes a show of yanking his shirt off or folding his arms in a prayer pose. As if to make a show of his preternatural power for supplying cringeworthy moments he also performs an obscenely gross commentary; something along the lines of “Na so I just start to dey download am/ The thing come begin dey dissolve for my belle.” His feats are nonetheless impressive. He has obliterated what can only be described as a mountain of garden eggs; 10 plates of Abacha decked out with an assortment of proteins; 15 plates of Spaghetti; 50 sticks of snails and a tray full of rice, and perhaps his tour de force: 10 plates of beans, 10 eggs and five fishes, the list goes on. 

Since he started posting these videos on TikTok, roughly four months ago, he has gone from being lanky to a pudgy mound of flesh. Crucially, however, his follower count has commensurately ballooned. His followers count on the platform has surpassed 122 thousand, he has garnered some 8.7 million likes and his videos easily garner anywhere between a million and two million views. Trudge through his comments and you’d find a hodgepodge of reactions, everything from people expressing shock and concern for his health and well-being to those egging him, in humor, anxious to see where his not-so-little experiments lead. 

Mr Downloader might be singular in his approach to purveying his distinctive blend of humor, cringe, and discomfort, through his acts of gluttony but his genre of content is hardly new. Before him was Dinma and then Ruth—both of whom rose to fame years ago on Twitter by posting before and after photos of large portions of food they had eaten. They’ve both since pivoted to other endeavors. Dinma now owns a successful hair business while Ruth, who occasionally still posts food content on a lark, is now more of a traditional Twitter influencer, earning engagement by seizing upon the latest trending topic. 

Juxtaposing the variety of content produced by influencers like Dinma and Ruth, and Mr Downloader surfaces a few interesting facts. There are of course the obvious bits such as the fact that while his predecessors built their fame on Twitter, Mr Downloader has established TikTok as his fiefdom, taking advantage of the platform’s video-first policy as opposed to the favored static images and short, witty texts of Twitter. The more salient observation however is that his style of content is more intense in every way imaginable. It’s more stimulating, more gross, features superfluous commentary and head-turning babble, and finally, the food portions are orders of magnitude larger: If Dinma and Ruth skirted the boundary of gluttony, Mr Downloader has since crossed it and is hurtling intrepidly into its abyss. 

In many ways, Mr Downloader is a fitting metaphor for the dark underbelly of social media. In the attention economy engagement—likes, comments, reposts—is the most valuable resource, and amassing it requires an ever-increasing threshold for jolting and capturing the attention of content-saturated audiences. It’s perhaps trite to say this but in this era, the type of content that shot Dinma and Ruth to fame would hardly attract a second look. Which is to say that the content gods continue to raise the bar for virality. As such, those who desire a share of the spotlight often have to perform increasingly outlandish acts to get audiences to stop and consider what they have to offer.

You might think this is a problem exclusive to influencers, celebrities, and media professionals, but it’s a situation that has wrapped around all of society. Several people have upbraided Mr Downloader for putting his health at risk for likes and comments but the vast majority of us glean excitement from his actions, rewarding him with the likes and comments fueling his actions. Still, the biggest indicator of the times we live in is that this constant need to deploy shock or hyperbole in order to snag public attention is the current state of social media. Social media today has become something of a shouting contest, Oshodi market is another metaphor that fits. X is a fighting pit in which its active denizens are ever ready to dispense with the truth, or decorum, oftentimes common sense, in favor of salacious replies. Linkedin is a patchwork of pretentious and hyperbolic language (so sorry Linkedin warriors, if it’s any consolation I’m also part of the problem.) TikTok is so overstimulating, it can at times feel like accidentally bounding into a club playing house music at the highest possible volume. Mr Downloader might be an extreme case but we’re all trapped in a game of constantly one-upping ourselves for the largest possible microphone.