What do the racist tweets, e-tolls, the POIB and rhino poaching have in common? Recently they have all been the focus of public outrage. Outrage is a useful thing. It was outrage that saw Jessica Leandra stripped of her endorsements and title, outrage that put a temporary halt to e-tolls, and outrage that has forced…
CEOs are not the sort of people we usually pay much attention to. Unless you’re Steve Jobs, excitement about corporate reshuffling doesn’t extend much beyond the business community. Except when you’re CEO of the most hated organisation in South Africa right now. Then you become the top trending topic on Twitter and everybody is happy…
Dear Tshidi I don’t know you. Apparently you’re a model and actress but, like Jessica, I hadn’t heard of you until yesterday. And I must say I’m astonished that it took me so long to find you. Specifically, this gem of a tweet, which you judged an appropriate response to the Jessica Leandra debacle: It…
Dear Jessica, I feel sorry for you. Really I do. You got up on Friday and tweeted that it would be a good day, without having any idea that by the end of it you’d have lost your sponsorship and your FHM title and been reported to the Human Rights Commission (HRC). So I’d like…
So I need to travel to Cape Town. Just for a day, to give a talk to a school on social media. I might squeeze in a couple of other meetings to make the most of the fact that I’m there. At most, booking a flight should take me five minutes, right? As it turns…
It’s Friday, the day on which – Phuza Thursday notwithstanding – many South Africans start drinking in earnest and, if some statistics are to be believed, don’t sober up until Monday morning rolls around. I was reminded the other night of how uncomfortable I feel around drunk people. Now I’m not talking pleasantly tanked and…
It’s something that’s bothered me for years. Oh, I forget about it and obsess over other things, like why all the women in CSI Miami have uniformly fabulous long hair when they work with evidence from crime scenes (have they not heard of the scrunchie?) and that weird Moroccan dude who walks around Sandton City…
I’m a born and bred Jo’burger, so I take security seriously. This also applies to matters of the heart. When it comes to feeling anything for anyone, I have taken comprehensive measures to prevent anyone from getting to me. There’s the boom and the ADT guard, the four-metre wall, the electric fencing, razor wire, beams,…
I’ve been talking to a lot of people lately. The young tech entrepreneurs and artists I met at Culture Shift. The 40-something filmmaker, writer and consultant I first encountered at an idea orgy (where ideas mate to produce new ideas). The marketing guru inspired by the potential for technology to inspire new social movements. The…
Sneezing. Laughing. Also running, yoga and sitting. This is a list of activities made more challenging when one has a bruised coccyx. How, you ask, does one get a bruised coccyx in the first place? Mainly by bouncing hard in the saddle while learning to canter — as I did the other morning. I’ve been…
