BEYOND LIKES & LOUDNESS
Are We Ready for Serious Conversations?
Social media and WhatsApp groups have become powerful meeting places for artists, cultural practitioners, administrators, and activists.
They connect us instantly, collapse distance, and allow voices from the margins to enter the centre of conversation.
Yet the uncomfortable question remains: what are we really using these spaces for?
Too often, our digital platforms are reduced to publicity boards, self-promotion tools, or worse — arenas for gossip, ego battles, and personal vendettas.
In a sector that remains largely unregulated, it is striking how easily we mobilise online energy to bash one another, spread rumours, or discredit those who speak out, while avoiding the harder, more uncomfortable conversations that could fundamentally transform the industry.
The Missed Opportunity
Imagine if there were WhatsApp groups and online forums where practitioners were actively engaging with:
The Cultural Institutions Act
The Public Finance Management Act (PFMA)
The National Arts Council Act
The NFVF Act
The Dance and Theatre Policy
The Community Arts Centres Policy
The Copyright Amendment Bill
The Performers’ Protection Bill
Not as abstract documents reserved for lawyers, academics, or government officials — but as living instruments that directly shape our livelihoods, governance structures, access to funding, and creative freedoms.
What if social media became a place where we equip one another with knowledge, unpack legislation in accessible language, debate policy implications, and collectively build pressure for reform?
The Culture of Reaction Over Reflection
At present, when one practitioner writes, many are no longer reading to understand. They are reading to respond. Reading to react. Reading to find fault.
Critique has its place — but when it is driven by ego, envy, or unresolved personal grudges, it weakens the collective.
Platforms meant for exchange become battlefields.
Conversations collapse into smear campaigns.
And in the process, we lose sight of the real struggle: building a fair, accountable, and sustainable arts sector.
Are We Afraid of Regulation?
Perhaps the most uncomfortable question is this:
Are we avoiding serious policy and governance discussions because we are not ready to be regulated?
Regulation requires discipline.
Regulation demands accountability.
Regulation forces us to move beyond personalities and focus on systems.
If we cannot commit to sustained, informed discussions on legislation and governance, then we must be honest about the consequences.
An unregulated sector remains vulnerable — to exploitation, inconsistency, political interference, and chronic instability.
A Shift Is Possible
This is not to dismiss the important work already happening.
A shout-out is due to progressive groups and collectives who are engaging meaningfully with sector issues, policies, and institutional reform — often quietly, without spectacle, and without discrimination.
They remind us that another way of engaging is possible.
A Call to Shift the Conversation
There are too many gossip groups fuelled by ego and envy — and too few spaces dedicated to knowledge-building, critical thinking, and collective strategy.
Maybe it’s time we ask ourselves:
What would happen if we shifted the conversation?
What if our timelines reflected not just who is angry, but what needs to change?
What if our WhatsApp groups became classrooms, think tanks, and organising spaces?
The tools are already in our hands.
The question is whether we are willing to use them differently.
Saturday is for reflection. The future of the sector demands action.
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