Nigerian Digital Comedies: Hypothesizing the Intersection of Social Change and Artistic Phrases in Online Human-angle Skits
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Date
2025
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HUMANUS DISCOURSE
Abstract
This study evaluates the Nigerian comic artistry with specific emphasis on the
human-angle subgenre as this concerns the Nigerian social change advocacy. This
research focus has been motivated by the dominant emphasis on political
comedies as a result of the numerous socio-political ills in Nigeria. This has made
the literatures on political comedies in Nigeria for satirical intent to be
monotonous. The study has therefore investigated the human-angle comedies in
online platforms as a way of interrogating the human flaws in the broad-total
ramifications of the Nigerian social decay. The study employs the Progressivist
Theory as guide. The study is also qualitative in nature. It has been noted through
the research videos that Nigerian human flaws include lewdness, prostitution (as
signified in Kiekie’s ‘Hook Up’), rusticity (as noted in Lizzy Jay’s ‘I Experienced an
Experienced’), as well as infidelity (as Lady Comfo preaches in ‘DNA Wahala’.
Interpretatively, the study notes that these human frailties are contributory to the
general decline in Nigeria’s social system. This is because, lewdness drains the
purse and motivates avarice, rusticity breeds ignorance, and infidelity waters
distrust. These become critical concerns because as they exist in the human-angle
ramification at the base level, they play critical roles in forming and shaping the
personalities of public political administrators in the country. The skit makers
opine that solution to Nigeria’s political ebb necessarily needs to start from the
base, the human-angle realms. Strategically, this message is conveyed in artistic
words and phrases such as code-mixing, tonal aesthetics, pun and so on. These
words and phrases are strategic language use by the vloggers as a way of
conveying their thoughts across most efficiently through humour.