Is it Just Me or is Everything Kak? The Zuma Years

From the author who brought you books like Ja Well No Fine and the original Kak series (Is it Just Me or is Everything Kak and Is it Just Me or is Everything Still Kak – there’s even an Afrikaans version), Tim Richman is back with another hilarious instalment in the series.

With his trademark rapier wit and biting humour, Tim’s satirical, tongue-in-cheek commentary on everything that affects us on a local and global scale is relatable on every level.

From the exasperated musings on the forthcoming elections (Heaven help us if we have Zuma running for a third term) to horror-filled observations of other people’s children (they really are the worst), you can expect hilariously scathing observations on issues that make your blood curdle with rage, while simultaneously recognising that Tim is simply great at capturing the essence of what we as South Africans love and know how to do best: complain.

So, sit back, have a laugh (and in some cases a cry, because although there is plenty to laugh at, Tim is quick to get real on the topics that deserve our consternation) and enjoy this witty, take-the-piss guide to everything South Africa has to offer.  

Check out an excerpt below (published with permission from Two Dogs, an imprint of Burnet Media. For more information about the book’s price and where you can get hold of it, scroll all the way to the bottom).

Social media usage as a personality disorder diagnosis tool

If you use social media on a regular basis you are, of course, a narcissist. The Zuma/Trump/Putin/Kardashian era is nothing if not the era of me. But can social media usage reveal more of a person’s innate psychological weaknesses than this? Is social media the ultimate broad platform for presenting people’s damaged psyches to the world?

I am in no way qualified to answer this question, but the answer is yes.

This last assertion is a derivative of the frequently encountered online response “Didn’t read the article, but [insert opinion]” and so, applying that principle to a similar cyber domain, I have now granted myself absolute licence to comment as a fully qualified psychiatrist who’s been practising for decades. (Diagnosis: delusions of ironic grandeur.)

Facebook Image Crafting is a real thing [see Facebook Image Crafting.] It speaks to our gross insecurities and the extent that human happiness is based on comparisons with those around us. So that’s two diagnoses already: narcissism and gross insecurity (probably a thing), which are clearly gateway diagnoses to depression, bipolar disorder and rageousness (also a thing).

Is there more to it than this? Well, here’s my extended theory: everyone who loses it on social media is insane.

Not like “haha, all women are insane” insane; I mean, actually of unsound mind, clinically unstable. Admittedly, this may be a temporary insanity brought upon by overindulgence in alcohol, extreme work stress or similar, but it’s still insanity. In once-off instances, you may be tempted to brush it under the carpet.

He’s been drinking again; she just broke up with her boyfriend – the equivalent of an awkward comment in the Uber ride home at 1am that you pretend not to hear (except it’s written on his FB wall!).

But what of the regular ranter who’s always battling the world? The Twitterer who loves “taking on” people with bad attitudes (because it’s the other people with the bad attitude)? The Facebooker forever punting Ponzi schemes and Bitcoin.

Think of your friend who always has some long-winded treatise against the system to offer, usually posted at 3am. Or your old colleagues who emigrated to Galway or Boyne Island ten years ago and have been harping online about life back home ever since. Or the low-grade celebrities and flash-in-the-pan cause célèbres who make the news with bizarre claims and nebulous tiffs.

Towards the end of 2015 UCT students followed a very personal battle between a professor and a student, the latter claiming she had been a victim of his racist agenda. After much emotion and public venting, in which time she drummed up a significant following, it emerged that she’d suffered a psychological event of some kind (yes, this is a euphemism).

Every month you see Twitter-happy politicians battling political commentators and even plain old citizens (their voters, remember), exchanging comments that you might hear in a schoolyard.

Every month you hear of the egregious and reputation-ending Facebook racism of judges, estate agents and unemployed Master’s graduates, as sure a sign of any of having departed one’s senses. Just rifle through this book for more examples.

Internationally, emotionally stunted adult stars trade day-long battles of Twitter bizarreness. In May 2016, for instance, the “outspoken” US rapper Azealia Banks directed a barrage of homophobic and racist slurs at pop singer Zayn Malik, after which, in trying to calm the waters, she casually mentioned that “obviously I’m insanely f***ing talented”. Scratch the “ly f***ing talented” and she had self-diagnosed.

And then there’s the wonderful Stephen Fry, grand-icon of the Twitterverse and self-confessed basket case.

So the brain doctor has spoken and a new modern psychiatric syndrome has thus been decreed: people who go nuts online literally are nuts: narcissistic, neurotic, grossly insecure, delusional, paranoid, self-obsessed, psychopathic, schizoid, bullying, irrational and rageous. Thus – and here’s the critical finding – everything ever said on social media should be ignored.

Now, I believe there should be an honorary doctorate coming my way – and if there isn’t I may get a little rageous and have to vent my feelings somewhere…

Extract from Is It Just Me Or Is Everything Kak? The Zuma Years by Tim Richman (Two Dogs, R120)

Purchase a copy of the book from Takealot.com.

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