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TikTok, PHDs, And The Shifting Measurement Of Success And Social Value, By Dr. Akin Olaniyan

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TikTok has never been my thing. I avoid that platform not because some of the viral videos have no cultural value but because the fleeting nature of most of them, somehow reminds me of the generally annoying dumbed-down standard of social media content. Notwithstanding, there are times when I am forced to pay attention, as it happened recently with the now infamous video of Habeeb Hamzat, otherwise known as Peller, in which he engaged some university graduates in what looked like a job interview. In those moments, what you tend to see is short-form videos, which highlight a set of long-simmering societal tensions.

In the video, which published on his official YouTube Channel and shared on other social media accounts, the unschooled Peller, is seen conducting what looked like job interviews for the role of a videographer on his content team. It is still difficult for me to accept that the exercise was anything other than another piece of content created just for the viewing numbers. We very well could have enjoyed it for its comedic flourish, except for the suggestion that some of the so-called applicants have Master’s degrees and even PhDs.

This troubling episode – of PhD holders applying for to be videographers under a TikToker – mirrors what Pierre Bourdieu refers to as a clash between cultural and economic capital. In the ‘old’ Nigeria, academic degrees used to command a symbolic power with certificates guaranteeing a clear path to status, jobs, and stability.

However, this episode suggests a new order, with social visibility and economic mastery in the attention economy as the basis of new power. Bourdieu’s illustration is useful and helps us to make sense of the viral video not as satire or anomaly, but as more profound conflict between two systems of value: one credentialed, the other algorithmic.

Typically, the social media space went crazy, the episode being interpreted by some as a tragicomic illustration of the state of graduate underemployment in the country. For others, it was yet another indication of how the attention economy is raising micro celebrities like Peller with immense clout and cash that calls to question the value of formal education.

However, of far more importance, it seems to me, if we ignore the flurry of memes and hot takes, is the fundamental issue of the shift in the structure of opportunity, legitimacy, and labour in Nigeria’s increasingly digitised society. I allowed the excitement to cool off before writing this, so it won’t be misinterpreted as an indictment of the content creator or a lament for the unemployed graduates who appeared in that video.

Both sides have their reasons for featuring and we don’t need them to be involved in the sort of rigorous debate of the true meaning of that video. Instead, this is focused interpreting the consistently sinister attempt at devaluing the benefits of formal education at a time when digital hustlers appear to be on the ascendancy as well as the troubling but revealing disconnect between traditional education and the demands of the attention economy.

Were we to examine this at face value, we might fall into the usual trap of trivialising the fact that university graduates – some of them with advanced degrees – applied for the role of a videographer advertised by a 19-year-old influencer.

Yes, it might sound absurd and probably humiliating to think that this is what those fellows could do with their university degrees, but if we step back and remind ourselves that Nigeria’s job market is saturated and that there is some misalignment between education and employment, maybe, just maybe, it becomes more bearable.

Those of us who have been privileged to be involved in recruitment processes have long worried that degrees from a lot of Nigerian universities limit social mobility and no longer guarantee financial stability. While we worried about other things, the quality of education was precariously eroded, and as quality depreciated, what was once seen as a great equaliser became the butt of jokes by content producers.

There is no intention here to join those who mock formal education but it is important to highlight the increasingly dangerous trend of assigning worth, which favours money over and above every other thing including degrees. My generation was raised to believe that success mostly requires some reasonable level of academic achievement: nursery school, primary, WAEC, university, and as we are witnessing, perhaps a Master’s degree abroad for those who are privileged. The long-held belief is that a strong academic base such as this guarantees a ‘respectable job.’

However, and as Peller’s ‘drama’ suggests, the attention economy is rubbishing the entire value chain; with unschooled people like him now better-placed to achieve through content creation the kind of good life that some PhD holders can only dream of.

Anyhow we look at it, it seems there is a legitimacy crisis hanging over formal education in Nigeria and when university graduates are willing to take roles as videographers from unschooled TikTok stars, we can no longer focus on the economic desperation that might have motivated them but rather turn attention to how and when the platform of value shifted.

Only a fool will disagree that knowledge is valueless and that graduates can be dragged in the way that Peller’s video suggests, but sadly, in the attention economy, the wrong kind of knowledge is rewarded by algorithms.

Peller, whose TikTok has over 11 million followers and whose videos have racked up 465 million likes, is typical of the new champions of the attention economy, a digital tycoon who have mastered the monetisation of video content.

Their success has so captured the imagination of Nigerians, that they are inspiring other youngsters who aspire to nothing else but to enter the content creation space. Unlike most Nigerian university graduates and young professionals trying to build a career Peller and his co-travellers have nothing to do with academic qualifications but rather in the ‘new gold’ – raw attention, which feeds on monetisable engagement.

These folks understand and speak the language of this new economy and consistently give the platforms what they want – viral content that expertly mixes spontaneity and strategic branding to ensure the paychecks keep coming.

I am aware that the default reaction to Peller and others is to sneer and dismissing them as unserious school dropouts who went into content creation because they lack the brains for academic rigour but this would be ignoring the obvious. Making millions consistently from social media platforms demand some reasonable level of intentionality and skill to build a digital persona that adds up into the sort of influence that helps them to ‘print money’ on a consistently sustainable level.

Observe the ruthless awareness of and shrewd appropriation of algorithm, brand collaborations, digital monetisation strategies, and you get the feeling that these folks aren’t just lucky. Thay have simply embraced the unconventional but profitable ways to use clout in the attention economy in ways that are making them become the envy of those who have gone through formal education but fail to understand the changing dynamics of this new environment.

It is why Peller’s moment with the graduates, while it looked like a job interview, should be seen as not just a publicity stunt but a performance both literally and figuratively. The episode should be seen as a comic commentary on power, prestige, and the arbitrariness of merit in the age of the attention economy. In one stroke, both literally and figuratively, the episode represents a sort of role reversal – the unschooled employer presiding over a job interview involving jobless university graduates.

Here is the dispiriting thing in it: what if, as we suspect it just might, the attention economy becomes the only thing there is and the future belongs to the unschooled content creator with the mastery of algorithms and monetisation and not to university graduates with no digital skills? Scary, right?

This forces the question: Why does it seem as if the highly educated Nigerians are ill-prepared for the opportunities presented by the new dynamics of the attention economy? Is there something wrong with what Nigerian universities teach or even, more worrying, what they are not teaching? I mean, how else do you explain the choice of Nigerian universities to remain stubbornly attached to outdated models of teaching and research?

Lacking the modern infrastructure to professionally prepare students for life in a rapidly digitising global economy, is there any wonder that the graduates they are producing are lacking some of the skills needed in the marketplace?

As a lot of Nigerian graduates – even from media programmes – are passing out with minimal exposure to digital storytelling, content production, personal branding, or platform strategy, young folks are disadvantaged in the changed environment of the marketplace.

There is the additional shortcoming of a defeatist mindset that leads many graduates to believe that their degrees alone confer entitlement to jobs at a time when the biggest rewards go to those who master how to command and retain attention.

So, what do we make of the Peller vide? One, it would be irresponsible to suggest that degrees are now worthless and that unless you are a content creator, you cannot enjoy the good life. However, Nigerian education ought to acknowledge and start paying attention to the relationship between formal education and digital opportunities. To continue to treat the two as mutually exclusive is to put it mildly, criminal.

Two, there is no need pretending. Nigerian universities must evolve both in curriculum and in orientation; to embrace a more pragmatic approach that allows the analytical rigour of academia to use the best of the agile creativity of the digital world. Three, content creators like Peller, and or their handlers should acknowledge and interrogate their own influence as clout comes with certain responsibilities. That piece of content might have gone viral and made money for the young man but the impact could be more significant in what it suggests: that Nigeria is a country where university education does not guarantee power, and where the clout and social media influence is fast becoming the most valuable form of capital.

In the final analysis, Peller’s engagement with those graduates was not just content – it was commentary, something like a slice of a society in transition. It is like we are forced to stand before a mirror to see our collective disappointment that education is failing to deliver the good life again and probably the early signs that the once accepted assessment of legitimacy is dead.

And maybe that is what unsettles us the most. Not that a TikTok star held interviews with PhD holders, but that we instinctively knew he could.

Dr. Akin Olaniyan is the Convener, Centre for Social Media Research, Lagos