The Spectacle And The State: Mandy Kiss And The Reward Of Hyperreal Notoriety
Recent events within Nigeria’s vibrant and often chaotic social media space are forcing us to confront serious issues about the systematic erosion of the once-clear distinction between fame and infamy. The appointments of fuji artiste, Wasiu Ayinde Marshal (KWAM 1, as an ambassador for proper airport security protocol and the suggestion that Airline Operators of Nigeria (AON) should consider Comfort Emmanson, the young woman in the Ibom Air drama as their own Ambassador for good passenger conduct already raised eyebrows for obvious reasons. Most of the concerns had to do with whether we were rewarding bad behaviour but obviously we have more to worry about.
KWAM 1’s appointment and the suggestion to ‘reward’ comfort Emmanson pale into insignificance given the recent decision by the Lagos State’s Kick Against Drug and Substance Abuse (LASKADA) campaign to appoint micro-celebrity Ayomiposi Oluwadahunsi, popularly known as Mandy Kiss, as an ambassador. It is difficult to say which is more annoying, the fact that she was considered at all or the fact that it came on the heels of her viral announcement of an attempt to break a non-existent Guinness World Record by having sexual intercourse with one hundred men in twenty-four hours.
The stunt – for we have to assume that it was nothing more than that – disguised as a charitable endeavour to raise funds for a friend’s kidney transplant has all the markings of a typical clout-chasing piece of content. We already know that these folks have the tendency to do this; so, it probably should not shock us again. In their world, bad publicity is good publicity. However, the chain of events, from the ‘viral’ morally-questionable notoriety to state-sanctioned ambassadorship, is not just a public relations misstep. It looks like we are witnessing the logical culmination of an unwanted cultural trend that we will be happy to not have to remember.
To put it in context, this looks like a new chapter in a long playbook pioneered by the likes of Cossy Orjiakor and Afro Candy (Judith Chichi Okpara). It was women like these, who in their respective eras deployed the dark art using the female body as a spectacle to attract public attention. The question their dubious careers provoke, and which the Mandy Kiss case forces us to revisit, is a fundamental one: have we, as a society, systematised the laundering of hyperreal notoriety into official legitimacy?
In making sense of this issue, we have to reference the French situationist philosopher Guy Debord who suggested that life is presented as an immense accumulation of spectacles; using his observation of advanced capitalist societies, where social relations are no longer directly experienced but are mediated by images. The lifestyle of Cossy Orjiakor in the early 2000s and Afro Candy in the 2010s were built on this premise. Cossy’s infamous, barely-contained bosom was her spectacle, a constant, hyper-visible image that guaranteed her appearance on the covers of soft sells, regardless of any tangible talent. Coming after Cossy, in an era when social media had become the biggest platform, Afro Candy digitally updated this model, gatecrashing her way into limelight through explicit dance videos and risqué content, thereby monetising shock value directly from her audience.
Mandy Kiss’s “world record” stunt was a classic spectacle in this dubious tradition, involving a crucial evolution. It looks like a carefully designed image made for the viral, post-truth age. The postmodern philosopher Jean Baudrillard’s concept of ‘simulacra and hyperreality,’ probably comes close to helping us capture the essence of what that young woman did. The “world record attempt” was a perfect simulacrum – a copy with no original. It was never a real, legitimate endeavour, a fact supported by the instant and unequivocal disclaimers from Guinness World Records. The proposed act was pure simulation.
Yet, the virality of the announcement – the outrage, the memes, the headlines – became a hyperreal fact. This hyperreality, the powerful and tangible notoriety of the “Mandy Kiss brand,” became more real and more influential in the social media space than the deflated reality of the cancelled stunt. Cossy and Afro Candy built their brands on being visibly controversial; Mandy Kiss engineered a hyperreal event that existed primarily in the digital discourse. I am persuaded that this is what the folks in Lagos State government, through the LASKADA campaign, are hoping to acquire and leverage. They were not appointing the woman; they were appointing the hyperreal brand.
The official announcement by the state Commissioner for Youth and Social Development, Mobolaji Ogunlende, suggests pure pragmatism was the prime motivation. He cited her “vast influence” and the “commitment to youth empowerment,” and that her reach can help draw young people into the program. This is sad because this sort of reasoning is a classic example of consequentialist ethics – the philosophical approach that the morality of an action is determined by its outcome. At its worst, the ends (increased youth support for LASKADA) are seen to justify the means (endorsing a figure famous for a “pornographic” spectacle).
Given the pushback from most Nigerians including the National Association of Nigerian Students (NANS), Mandy Kiss’s stunt was morally reprehensible, therefore, rewarding the person behind it with a state-affiliated ambassadorship violates a fundamental societal duty to uphold certain values. This is not merely a public relations disagreement; it is a fundamental philosophical clash over the very source of moral authority.
This generation’s obsession with total visibility threatens to lead us to a “pornographication” of society, a compulsion to make all things explicit, visible, and stripped of all nuance. Cossy Orjiakor’s wardrobe and Afro Candy’s dance moves were early forms of this craze, with each one of them pushing the boundaries of public display. Mandy Kiss’s stunt was its apotheosis: a private act made hyper-visible, quantified, and decontextualised for public consumption. LASKADA’s gesture chose to capitalise on the “explicit spectacle” rather than recoiling from it, and in that choice accepted contemporary philosopher Byung-Chul Han’s grim diagnosis: in the transparency society, the most explicit, attention-grabbing act is perceived as the most “authentic” and therefore the most valuable.
The inevitable outcome of this convergence – of the historical spectacle, the hyperreal, and societal pornography – is the postmodern collapse of hierarchies. The “serious” world of statecraft and public policy is attempting to merge the “vulgar” world of online shock-value clouting that Cossy and Afro Candy once dominated. The government’s narrative of pragmatic influence exists in a different universe from the public’s traditional narrative of a role model who exemplifies merit and integrity.
In this new, flattened cultural terrain, the hyperreal notoriety generated by a spectacle becomes a form of capital as fungible as cash. Cossy Orjiakor traded hers for fleeting media relevance; Afro Candy traded hers for direct subscriber payments. Mandy Kiss, however, has achieved a new, disturbing milestone: she has traded hers for official state endorsement. The state, in this case, has shown itself willing to make the transaction, purchasing a package of accumulated attention to promote its programme, thereby sanctifying a career strategy it would have once officially condemned.
If we take the trajectory from Cossy to Afro Candy to Mandy Kiss as an indication, the omen is not encouraging. We are actively cultivating an ecosystem where the path to official recognition is through engineered media spectacle. By this appointment, it looks like the state is sending a clear, damaging message to every young Nigerian: the path to being seen and endorsed is to be more brazenly transgressive than the last person, following a blueprint laid down by spectacle-creators of the past.
So, what do we make of the Mandy Kiss ambassadorship? It is not an anomaly. It is the wickedly logical endpoint of a cultural journey long visible in Nigeria’s media landscape. It is the moment the state caught up with the spectacles of Cossy Orjiakor and Afro Candy, looked at their hyperreal successor, and decided not to look away, but to sign a contract. The government saw a hyperreal brand – the heir to a dubious legacy of notoriety – and acquired it, enthusiastically collapsing the last vestiges of a cultural hierarchy that once separated honour from infamy.
