A person can lose their dignity in Ghana today before they even realise they are being watched.

One argument at a roadside.

One emotional outburst.

One embarrassing mistake.

One unfortunate accident.

One private disagreement.

One moment of weakness.

A smartphone appears.

The camera starts recording.

And within minutes, somebody's most vulnerable moment can become entertainment for an entire country.

The video is posted.

The comments begin.

The laughter follows.

Then come the reposts, reaction videos, memes, TikTok sounds and WhatsApp forwards.

Before long, the person at the centre of it all may be sitting somewhere wondering how an ordinary moment of their life became public property.

We call it content.

We call it cruise.

We call it entertainment.

We call it going viral.

But perhaps we should call it what it increasingly is:

The commercialisation of another person's humiliation.

Ghana's obsession with virality is becoming more than a social media trend. It is slowly becoming a culture in which attention is valued above dignity, engagement is valued above empathy and being first is valued above being responsible.

And if we are not careful, we may wake up one day and realise that social media did not merely change how we communicate.

It changed how we treat one another.

When the camera comes before compassion

Something disturbing is happening around us.

A person falls in public and phones come out.

Two people fight and phones come out.

Someone is crying and phones come out.

A student makes a mistake and phones come out.

A person appears mentally or emotionally distressed and phones come out.

Someone is being embarrassed and phones come out.

The first instinct is increasingly not to help.

It is to record.

That should concern all of us.

There was a time when seeing someone in distress triggered compassion.

Today, it can trigger the thought:

“This will get views.”

That is a dangerous transformation.

The smartphone was supposed to bring us closer together.

Instead, we are sometimes using it to stand emotionally farther away from people in pain.

We watch suffering through a screen.

We laugh from a distance.

We comment without seeing the tears.

And because the victim is not physically standing in front of us, their humanity becomes easier to forget.

The viral economy rewards the outrageous

We cannot discuss this problem without discussing money and attention.

Social media has created real economic opportunities.

Creators can earn income.

Businesses can attract customers.

Musicians can promote their work.

Influencers can build careers.

Young people can turn creativity into livelihoods.

That is the positive side.

But every economy creates incentives.

And the online economy often rewards attention.

The more people watch, the more valuable content can become.

This creates a temptation to produce whatever will generate the biggest reaction.

And what generates reactions?

Shock.

Drama.

Anger.

Scandal.

Conflict.

Embarrassment.

Humiliation.

The more outrageous the content, the more people click.

The more people click, the more the algorithm notices.

The more the algorithm notices, the more people see it.

And the cycle continues.

We have therefore created an environment where somebody else's embarrassment can become somebody else's business opportunity.

That is where we need to draw a line.

When “cruise” becomes an excuse

Ghana has a strong culture of humour.

We joke.

We tease.

We laugh at ourselves.

There is nothing wrong with that.

But the word “cruise” should not become a moral escape route.

Someone is insulted.

“It's cruise.”

Someone's private issue is exposed.

“It's cruise.”

Someone is humiliated in front of thousands.

“Don't take it seriously.”

But the person experiencing the humiliation may not be laughing.

A joke is not automatically harmless because the person making it is laughing.

A prank is not automatically acceptable because people watching find it funny.

Entertainment does not cancel responsibility.

We need to learn the difference between laughing with someone and laughing at someone.

The audience is not innocent

It is convenient to blame the person who recorded the video.

But what about the thousands who made it viral?

A creator may upload a video once.

But the audience can distribute it thousands of times.

We are the audience.

We are the ones pressing share.

We are the ones tagging friends.

We are the ones forwarding it to WhatsApp groups.

We are the ones commenting.

We are the ones giving the algorithm a reason to keep pushing it.

So when we complain that social media is becoming toxic, we must look in the mirror.

The internet is a reflection of what we repeatedly reward.

If we reward cruelty, cruelty will multiply.

If we reward humiliation, humiliation will become content.

If we reward responsible storytelling, creators will have an incentive to produce better material.

The audience is not powerless.

The audience is the market.

We are turning ordinary people into unwilling celebrities

The most troubling part of viral culture is that many of its victims never asked to become famous.

They did not audition.

They did not sign a contract.

They did not agree to become content.

They simply lived a moment in public.

Suddenly their face is everywhere.

Their voice is being imitated.

Their clothes are being discussed.

Their relationship is being analysed.

Their mistakes are being replayed.

Their family members are being dragged into the conversation.

Their workplace may discover the video.

Their classmates may see it.

Their future employers may find it.

And the person cannot simply walk away from it.

That is the cruelty of digital fame.

You can become famous without ever consenting to fame.

The internet has a long memory

We often behave as though viral content disappears after a few days.

It does not necessarily.

A post may disappear from the trending page, but screenshots remain.

Downloads remain.

Reposts remain.

Archives remain.

People remember.

A young person's embarrassing video can resurface years later.

A foolish statement made at 19 can follow someone into adulthood.

A private photograph shared without permission can continue circulating long after the original incident.

This means the consequences of viral humiliation are not always temporary.

The internet may forget the trend.

But the victim may never forget what it did to them.

The mental price is rarely discussed

We talk about views.

We talk about likes.

We talk about engagement.

We talk about how funny the video was.

But we rarely talk about what happens after everyone stops laughing.

What happens when the person goes home?

What happens when they look at their phone and see hundreds of insulting comments?

What happens when strangers begin recognising them?

What happens when their family calls?

What happens when they stop wanting to leave the house?

What happens when they become afraid of public attention?

What happens when they begin questioning their own worth?

A viral moment can become a deeply personal crisis.

The audience gets entertainment.

The victim gets the consequences.

That imbalance should make us uncomfortable.

We are also normalising mob justice

Another dangerous development is the speed with which social media users become judge, jury and executioner.

A video appears.

A person is accused of wrongdoing.

Before the facts are established, thousands of people begin attacking them.

Names are revealed.

Photographs are circulated.

Family members are identified.

Employers are contacted.

Threats are issued.

People demand punishment.

Sometimes the accusations may be true.

Sometimes they may be false.

But once a digital mob forms, facts can become secondary.

This is dangerous.

Justice cannot simply be determined by whichever story gets the most shares.

A viral accusation is not a court judgment.

A trending hashtag is not evidence.

A crowd online does not automatically know the full story.

We must be careful not to replace institutions of justice with digital anger.

Citizen journalism needs responsibility

Social media has also created millions of potential eyewitnesses.

That can be powerful.

Citizens can document corruption, police misconduct, dangerous roads, environmental problems and other issues that deserve public attention.

But citizen journalism should not mean citizen irresponsibility.

Recording an event can serve the public interest.

Exposing wrongdoing can protect society.

Documenting evidence can promote accountability.

But publishing someone's private suffering simply because it attracts views is something else.

The key question should always be:

What public value does this content provide?

Not:

How many views can I get?

The media must know the difference

Traditional media houses also have a responsibility.

A viral clip can be tempting.

It already has an audience.

It can generate clicks.

It can create engagement.

But journalism is not supposed to be a competition to repost whatever is trending first.

Journalists must ask whether publishing the material is ethical, necessary and in the public interest.

The question is not simply:

“Will people watch this?”

The better question is:

“Why should people watch this?”

If a video exposes wrongdoing, raises a legitimate public concern or provides important evidence, publication may be justified.

But if its only attraction is that people are laughing at another person's humiliation, journalists should think carefully before amplifying it.

A newsroom should not become a more respectable-looking version of a gossip page.

Influencers have become powerful gatekeepers

Influencers often underestimate the power they possess.

A creator with a large following can identify an ordinary person and expose them to an audience larger than any newspaper front page could reach.

One post can change someone's reputation overnight.

That power requires responsibility.

Influence should not mean having permission to expose anyone.

Creators should understand that their followers are not merely numbers.

They are an audience capable of causing real-world consequences.

With great reach must come greater restraint.

Privacy is not dead

The digital age sometimes gives us the dangerous impression that privacy no longer matters.

It does.

A person's private conversation is still private.

Their personal photographs are still personal.

Their family problems are still personal.

Their moments of weakness are still human experiences.

Not everything that can be photographed should be published.

Not everything that can be accessed should be exposed.

Not everything that can generate clicks deserves to be shared.

We must recover the ability to say:

“This is not mine to share.”

Young people are growing up inside the attention economy

For young Ghanaians, this issue is even more complicated.

They are growing up in an environment where popularity has become measurable.

Followers.

Likes.

Views.

Subscribers.

Shares.

A young person can begin to believe that attention equals importance.

The pressure to remain visible can become exhausting.

People may feel compelled to constantly produce content.

They may reveal increasingly personal details.

They may manufacture drama.

They may copy dangerous trends.

They may do things they would never do privately simply because they believe it will make them famous.

We need to teach young people something that the algorithm will never teach them:

You do not have to be visible to be valuable.

A quiet life is not a failed life.

An ordinary life is not an unsuccessful life.

And not every beautiful moment needs to be uploaded.

The algorithm does not have a conscience

This is another point we cannot ignore.

An algorithm does not understand dignity.

It does not know that someone is someone's daughter.

It does not know that someone has a grieving mother.

It does not know that someone is struggling emotionally.

It does not understand embarrassment.

It understands engagement.

It sees what people click.

It sees what people watch.

It sees what keeps people online.

That is why human beings must provide the conscience.

We cannot expect algorithms to make moral decisions for us.

The machine can recommend the content. We must decide whether to consume and spread it.

We must learn to stop before we share

Perhaps the most powerful form of resistance is also the simplest.

Pause.

Before sharing an embarrassing video, pause.

Before forwarding private information, pause.

Before insulting someone, pause.

Before joining a digital mob, pause.

Before publishing a viral clip, pause.

Ask:

Is it true?

Is it necessary?

Is it in the public interest?

Has the person consented?

Could this cause unnecessary harm?

Am I sharing it because it is important—or simply because it is entertaining?

Sometimes, the most responsible thing we can do online is nothing.

Do not share.

Do not comment.

Do not amplify.

Let the content die.

Ghana must decide what kind of digital culture it wants

We are still writing the rules of Ghana's digital culture.

We can build an online environment that celebrates creativity, innovation, education, entrepreneurship and meaningful public debate.

Or we can build one where humiliation is currency.

Where scandal is success.

Where privacy is weakness.

Where cruelty is comedy.

Where the person with the most shocking video wins.

The choice is ours.

Social media has given ordinary Ghanaians an extraordinary voice.

We should use that voice wisely.

Let us expose corruption.

Let us promote local businesses.

Let us celebrate talent.

Let us educate one another.

Let us demand accountability.

Let us tell stories that matter.

But let us stop treating human beings as disposable content.

Because the person we are laughing at today may be somebody's mother.

Somebody's father.

Somebody's sister.

Somebody's brother.

Somebody's child.

And, most importantly, they are somebody.

The next time a shocking video appears on your screen, do not ask only:

“How many people have seen this?”

Ask:

“What did it cost the person at the centre of it?”

Because every viral post has a human story behind it.

Every view is a decision.

Every share is an amplification.

Every comment can either deepen the wound or stop the bleeding.

We cannot complain about the internet's cruelty while feeding it with our attention.

We cannot demand responsible creators while rewarding irresponsible content.

And we cannot say we value human dignity while turning someone's humiliation into our evening entertainment.

The race to go viral should never become a race to lose our humanity.

Today, the camera may be pointed at somebody else.

Tomorrow, it could be pointed at you.

And when your worst moment becomes someone's favourite content, you may finally understand the question we should have been asking all along:

Was it really worth the views?