The butts have it…booty being the centre of focus

Go through social media pages and you will feast your eyes on photos of women bending, standing, going… the booty being the centre of focus. What’s with the obsession with the sitting apparatus?

Jasmine Atieno @sparkleMine

It would be close to a miracle today to spend about 10 minutes in any social media platform without bumping into a booty shot.

And when you get to Instagram, the hash tags range between #bootyfordays and just outright #bootybootybootybooty! Bending, standing, going… the booty is the centre of focus.

It’s official: The butt selfie is the only selfie that matters anymore. What happened to the good old days when it was totally great to take photos of our faces and share with our loved ones?

Today, it seems women are being identified by their sitting apparatus. There are more photos of women going than coming with the clear focus on the rear view. 

Digital content creator, Peace Loise Mbae, shares that the rise of celebrity and socialite status has hugely enabled this trend on social media platforms.

“With beauty trends being such a global thing now, I think that’s where this comes from.

The rise of celebrities such as Kim Kardashian and Nicky Minaj who popularised big booty and boobs became very sexualised and viewed as the standard of beauty,” Peace says. 

“Women with big booties are now more drawn to show off their behinds. Butt selfies get the most likes and comments online.

And with the desire to get clicks and following, most give the viewers what they want,” she adds.

Research assistant, Elizabeth Winnie shares that in her view, both globalisation and the Internet has escalated this trend in the society.

And more women are using their images for their general commercial benefits.

This has in turn paved way for more shape enhancing products, which lure more women into the traps. 

“Today, the world is moving at a very fast rate, and the Internet hasn’t done it justice either.

Classifying of women, by women and by men is nothing new, but has escalated so much contributing to this fact of booty pictures, nude pictures  among others,” she says. 

Commercialisation at it’s best

“Everything is commercialised… trust me a woman with a big bottom will get a lot of praise and ogling at work, on the streets and everywhere and have better chances scoring on certain jobs compared to one with small derrières.

It’s like; use what you have to get what you need… and women with big bottoms are tapping into it wholesomely.

Case effect you see the rise in sale of booty enhancers, booty shapers, fake booty pads, anything to give an illusion of a huge butt. With butts, social media reigns supreme,” she says. 

Eye candy

Gideon Kariuki says many men go to the social media platforms specifically for this “eye candy” that is all so natural.

“All men have different preference for their female body types. But I believe I am speaking for all African men when I say that we like them as round and as big as possible.

Honestly, many people have actually met their better halves on social media and not through their intelligence and things. The booties really matter,” he says.

Perhaps this explains why a man will show-of his bootlicious better half.

“He wants to pass the message, ‘see, I got the best.’  He wants you to admire what others failed to conquer but that he did,” he says.

Today, buttocks augmentation procedures are common. Also, more and more gym sessions focus on building one’s posterior.

Unfortunately, the message young people hear and see is that eroticism is an investment in itself.

To raise one’s sexual potency is a privilege and a currency that can be translated into real material benefits.

According to image consultant and Public Image Africa CEO, Derek Bbanga, this butt selfies, has gained more popularity with young women who are looking for klout.

The term klout is used to mean to have mad respect and one’s name gets extremely more influence amongst their peers.

According to Dictionary.com, the slang word clout long predates Instagram. The slang appears as early as the 1860s for “political influence,” apparently based on a centuries-old sense of clout meaning “punch” or “force.”

A person with clout could get things done on Capitol Hill or Wall Street. 

Clout got new life in the 2000s with the rise of social media. Launching in 2008, an app called Klout calculated a person’s social media influence with a so-called Klout score.

Have a lot of followers and get a lot of likes? You’ve got clout. People are paying attention to you. 

Clout spread in the 2010s as a more general slag term denoting popularity and coolness, not unlike having swag or cred or being an influencer.

Wearing a supreme tee, some fresh kicks, and a pair of white, round sunglasses? You’re hip.

You’re on point. You’ve got clout. And now for young women, showing of your sitting apparatus, got many women clout (or klout).

And in Kenya there was never a time that booty images and videos gained more clout than with the rise of Gengetone music and generation. 

Doing it for clout

The explicit music video would win millions of views and following on all channels. And despite the fact that the videos were only a step away from real pornography, they got clout. 

“It is a competition for eyeballs. It is a race for the least common denominator, and this is determined by who gets the most likes or followings on social media, and women are tapping into this.

More men compared to women, are clicking onto these kinds of images and in turn this allows the women to see themselves as popular,” says Bbanga who is also communication and emotional intelligence consultant.

According to the expert, the women who focus on this kind of image and exposure are most of the time looking for validation that they are not getting from elsewhere, and from their immediate people. 

And this clout mentality has a background of a lot other issues including low self-esteem and lack of confidence, but unknown to them, this eventually has some long term effects on them. 

“It is important to note that these platforms you use to get klout are investments, which have spent billions of dollars on how to get you. So most of these platforms are used as a form of manipulation.

It is important to look at the totality of your life as a young woman and do something more productive, which will allow you to still get this popularity,” he says.