PALL BEARERS

From fascinating online challenges to dramatic tantrums, social media has played host to an evolution of trends that have left people wondering, “how on earth would anybody even think of this?” But the latest trend surprisingly catching the wave will leave you – as grim as it may seem – laughing about death.

“By June deɛ…,” I said with a giggle. Whatever followed after this three-word phrase, left her in shock and our new friendship hanging by a thread.

We had crossed paths on a social media platform and graduated our small talk into a budding friendship. Prior to the lockdown, she worked in Tema, in charge of getting agricultural produce of a top Ghanaian company ready for shipment overseas.

“You would not survive in a container,” she blatantly told me via text over WhatsApp, seeking to educate me as to why a metal container due for shipment was not the best medium if I wanted to become a stowaway through the seaport.

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She added that I would die “because they fog it after loading,” within a few minutes of my being locked up in a container as I had jokingly suggested.

Apparently, fogging is a technique used for killing insects on containers. It involves using a fine pesticide spray which is directed by a blower.

My response was, “It wouldn’t matter, because by June deɛ…,” I said no more hoping she would catch the drift. But she probed, “why June?”

“By June we would all be dead,” I retorted.

The long pause after this reply was enough to fill the air with indications that I had told an expensive joke. She would have none of that, asking “why would you say such a thing.” The rest of the conversation was a cocktail of disappointment and expression of disdain towards a young man whose poor judgement left the balance between his target audience and his choice of joke unweighted.

The thing is, I was only a duplicating a morbid trend on social media dominating timelines on both Twitter and Facebook. Although its origin is unclear, many have jokingly embraced this widely shared prediction, although without scientific backing, that the world would be wiped away by the month of June as a result of the Covid-19 pandemic.

For a country that has seen a rise in novel coronavirus cases to 641 with 83 recoveries 8 deaths as of April 15, 2020, some Twitter users would rather laugh about the development than cry over spilt milk.

Societal norms, especially in Ghana, preach a strong resistance to making jokes about issues surrounding death and the afterlife. Assertions about the dead are considered to be sacred across all traditions and therefore respect for the transmission is very paramount.

However, millennials have joined forces with Generation Zs to breach that caveat into creating a new wave of sarcasm out of this sacred rite of passage.

Even more pronounced is the latest Ghanaian meme which has now gained international acclaim, named ‘Dada Awu,’ to wit ‘Daddy has died.’

It’s a video of Ghanaian pallbearers demonstrating their casket-carrying skills by orchestrating a choreographed routine, lifting it up and lowering it and even sitting on the floor if need be.

As to what is laughable and what is not, you could be the judge.

Either ways, June is around the corner. We live to see.

The author Kenneth Awotwe Darko is a journalist with The Multimedia Group, a social media analyst and enthusiast.

Twitter: @TheKennethDarko