A quick search on your modern-day encyclopaedia – Google – teaches us that spam is unsolicited or undesired electronic messages. Kindly highlight ‘undesired’, amae. In Namibia, entertainers, especially artists, have a habit of constantly bombarding people with texts on WhatsApp. 

‘Vote for me’… ‘Check out my new music video’… ‘please put this on your status’… ‘New music out now’… ‘Come one; come all’… Whoever championed this trend perhaps had innocent and genuine intentions, right? To keep influencers and fans abreast of your brand. I get that; I do. 

But now I have over 30 artists constantly sending me these texts every day – more than once a day from one artist. Can you imagine what my WhatsApp looks like? These texts have officially become undesired, hence WhatsApp spam. 

I cannot for the life of me understand why these artists cannot embark on a bit of R&D (Research and Development). It is called R&D for a reason. Do a bit of research and ask: are my current methods working? That is the research element. If not, let’s try something else (the development element). 

I literally don’t reply. I don’t even blue-tick these texts. What makes you think I will suddenly reply to your message today if I haven’t replied to 20 of your texts from last week? Maybe this is just me but do people appreciate this constant bombardment of texts on WhatsApp from artists? Let’s run a quick survey. This survey will determine whether you should stop spamming people on WhatsApp. 

Dear Namibian artists, do you get any replies or reaction? Are they positive? Have these people, whom you send your multiple messages, ever texted you first? If yes, when was the last time they did (texted you first)? 
If your answers were ‘no’ (or sometimes) and ‘it’s been a while’, then please, I beg of you, Stop the spamming; It is annoying, AF! No one in this era likes to be treated like a robot. Stop treating your market like robots! Constantly, always trying to sell something or getting them to support you one way or another will yield the exact opposite effect.  

When was the last time you asked one of your fans or influencers ‘You good?’ When I said artists are the most selfish people on planet Earth, people wanted to call Kalahari Desert on me. Demonstrate a bit off your human side and you will see immense change. 

Until the next loop, we say “GMTM”!
NSK is a professional MC. For bookings, email naobebsekind@gmail.com
@naobebsekind (twitter)