Thanks to the different mediums that have come up as the world evolves, the audio visual content space has become more competitive than ever before. As such, seeing content creators such as television, vloggers and influencers doing the most to stay relevant isn’t unusual, but surely there are lengths one shouldn’t have to go for the sake of clickbait? There’s no doubt that a news feed runs a lot like a heartbeat and it is in everybody’s best interest to keep it that way, but for the sake of human courtesy, certain lines shouldn’t be crossed, especially when it infringes on one’s sense of security and privacy. For example, when you observe the press coverage of funerals especially those associated with public figures, there is a lot of press presence because news has to be reported, but when they capture photographs or videos of the deceased’s loved ones expressing their grief mostly through tears and slump an intrusive caption onto it with no consideration of the circumstances, many believe that a line has been crossed. According to Pastor Hassan Kibirango, author of “The Gift of Monday” and a minister at CLA, vloggers exploiting other people’s grief/trauma and labelling it content isn’t worth the extra clicks whose “lasting impact” will be gone and forgotten within the following week. “Rwandan YouTube Vloggers, STOP capitalizing on people’s grief to get views and cash in. It’s disrespectful to the grieving family when you film them at the morgue and at the burial grounds, and give your videos clickbait titles for views. @RwandaMedia stop these PARASITES!!!” reads a tweet made by Kibirango regarding the matter. The negative attention they are now receiving isn’t uncalled for because certain content creators have made a spectacle out of a grieving moment in an attempt to make it meme worthy on several instances. For example just recently when a celebrity lost a loved one, vloggers took to their YouTube channels to publicize his emotions, which infringed on his privacy, and didn’t make the grieving process any easier. Another elaborate example is the way vloggers go above and beyond to discredit and spread rumors about a celebrity shortly after their death, just as the country is mourning their loss. Speaking from an informed perspective Margaret Jjuuko, an associate professor at University of Rwanda in the faculty of journalism believes that there is a line that shouldn’t be crossed for coverage. According to her, journalists or not should get acquainted with the code of conduct and do their best to uphold to it, but some things are common knowledge. For example, when doing press coverage for a funeral it is common courtesy to put the camera down once someone begins crying because publicizing their grief is not morally right. “There is a code of conduct for journalists to follow and the vloggers know about it as well. The general public contributes significantly to news production and dissemination and it’s only right to get their consent before publicizing something personal. Journalists and vloggers should also self-censor to maintain decent standards,” she says. For the diaspora community that expects more from their motherland, realising that vloggers in Rwanda have taken on unappealing western behaviors is saddening, according to Barbara Umulisa a university graduate that recently returned to the country. “I got accustomed to how intrusive the paparazzi can be abroad and honestly I expected more from Rwandan vloggers because we were raised with different values. It is wrong to infringe on a grieving family’s privacy and people should just stop doing that,” says Umulisa.
