Give us the messy relationship update, the unexpected plot twist, and the “sit down, let me tell you what happened” moment. Give us the proper tea… the “You people will not believe what just happened” tea.
But there is a difference between sharing tea and exposing somebody’s private business.
And lately, that line seems to be disappearing faster than a trending topic after three days.
Because somewhere along the way, social media has become the new venue for messages that were clearly meant to be a phone call.
Tell me why you are sitting comfortably, scrolling through your phone, completely unaware that you are about to be dragged into somebody else’s personal history.
“I can’t believe you decided to have a child with a married man…”
Excuse me?
Like… how is that our concern?????????
Who invited us to this meeting?
Why are we suddenly sitting in the front row of a family matter we did not even know existed?
And before you can process that, the speaker has moved on to the person’s exes.
Not the fresh tea.
Not even warm tea.
Rotten. Uncooked. Archaeological tea.
Stories from relationships that ended years ago. Things that were apparently said in private. Old disagreements. Who dated whom. Who allegedly did what? Details that sound like they were supposed to remain buried somewhere between two people and a WhatsApp chat.
And you are watching your phone thinking:
Sir… Could you not have called her?
Nobody, absolutely nobody, needed to hear that.
If the message is for them, why are we watching?
Send them a message.
There is a revolutionary piece of technology called WhatsApp.
It has existed for years.
You can even send a voice note. And here is the thing: that person whose tea you are serving for clicks, likes and comments has a reputation they have built over years.
You do not get to casually throw it into the public square simply because you know something about them.
And what makes this whole phenomenon even more interesting is that a lot of these Ubuyu CEOs are men.
Grown men.
Men who have somehow turned knowing everybody else’s business into a professional qualification.
They know who broke up. Who reconciled? Who owes whom money? Who allegedly sent what message?
Whose relationship is struggling. Who said what in a private conversation?
That is not automatically tea. Sometimes it is simply somebody else’s business.
And perhaps that is what our Ubuyu CEOs need to remember. You can have the screenshot and not post it.
You can know the story and not tell it. You can hear the voice note and delete it.
You can know exactly what happened and still say:
“Hii si yangu kusema.”
Imagine that.
A man with information choosing silence.
A rare species. Put him in a museum.
Because there is actually something powerful about knowing when not to speak.
So, next time the urge to go live hits, take a breath.
