22 September 2024

Act of Opinions, p1 - Blessing Afolayan

FIONA SLEMP

MY FAMILY IS ORIGINALLY FROM WEST AFRICA, NIGERIA. I WAS 14 WHEN I MOVED TO SCOTLAND.

After moving to Scotland, and then going to high school in Glasgow.

Blessing moved to Dundee for university. Graduating with a law degree.
She is currently in a part time internship with a law-firm.

She explains to me how she's been influenced in various ways, through her family's values and her mothers creativity growing up.

This leading up to her choices of studies, work, and lifestyle.

Blessing is a seriously passionate artist
and notably consistent within her evolving creative work.

"For influences, I tend to look towards people of colour, people who look like me, its just more relatable."

"I could be watching a movie and look into the creative director, I’ll look into their whole life story, how they got there

and just that, inspires me you know? The next day it might be someone
in fashion, it changes all the time."

"In the next year or two I'm hoping to get my masters in marketing, be able to work full time on creative projects. I hope I wont have to leave Scotland for that, but at the moment it's looking like I might have to. I was thinking of leaving for Edinburgh, Manchester, or London, but London, it's just to fast paced for me, I like more of that toned down, you know quiet and still vibe."

"Its really just the creative opportunities that Dundee's lacking."

F: How are you feeling in your community, are you content in the UK?

Hmm.. I’m not content.

I don’t think I’ll ever be content. I think it mostly has nothing to do with where I am right now, it just has to do with my mindset, and what I'm doing in my own private life. I just don’t feel like the opportunities I deserve are coming to me, I have to fight so hard for them.

I feel like I want more for myself, I just feel tired, because I'm not yet fulfilling my

FULLEST POTENTIAL

F: How welcome do you feel to share your personal beliefs, and opinions, political to spiritual with maybe work or friends, family?

Definitely not for work, 'cause it's very much business is business. But also I'm not a very sharing person. I keep to myself, I don’t really talk to someone unless I'm being talked to. I'm very introverted. Like if someone did ask me about something, I would speak up openly, especially if someone was to make an offensive statement. Basically I won't talk about it, unless I have to.

F: Do you pay a lot of attention to the news?

I do, but not in the traditional way, like mainstream media, I don’t really keep up with that. Mostly I'll get my information from the internet, Instagram, TikTok, which makes sense, I am Gen Z.

F: Do you think you put more mental energy into your own community, or in what’s happening out- side your world, what’s more important to you?

I think I do focus more on what’s happening around me more than what’s happening out there. Cause it affects me personally. I'm the kind of person who loves to give back, especially if someone has poured into me, I want to pour back in some kind of way.

So I tend to seek out people from my own community, interact with them, help out, and build each other up.

F: Using social media, do you think your algorithm prevents you from being able to see a bigger

picture with reports?

Absolutely, even though I get my information and news from social media, I don’t really take it to heart you know. I’m not very trusting. When I see something I think, I need to see the bigger picture, what’s going on? What’s the other side of this?

I guess that has to do with me studying law. Like, you can argue to argue, but then it's not actually about the truth.

F: What do you feel facing all the intensity of misinformation right now?

It's very very draining, for me I just feel so frustrated. It's depressing because you kind of know the truth, but you're not really telling me it. Why? 2021 I just shunned the news out completely. It just wasn’t really serving me, I decided to shut off.

F: Do you regularly have conversations around misinformation?

With my close friends mostly, especially for people my age, we know what’s going on, we're frustrated and we're tired. It's very important to talk about it because sometimes when you bottle that up it kind of just explodes, gets more confusing, and you don’t really feel heard or sane. If you don’t talk about what's going on in your head, you don’t know if people are feeling the same way, and when you talk about it you realise oh we are feeling the same thing? It makes you feel sane, it makes you feel like you can relate, it creates a bit more calm for me, like ok, I’m not crazy, I’m not over thinking.

F: -So does that feeling change when talking to a different age group for you?

Oh yeah, definitely it changes, I’m friends with older people as well, and the mentality is just different, which makes sense I feel like with the older generations they tend to believe the news more.

F: Do you have any hopes for progress in media/journalism?

Well I don’t think the mainstream news will ever be as realistic as we want it to be. I think we need more ways of people watching and just blurting everything out, you know? I think we need more people like that, I think that’s the only way forward.

"As chaotic as that sounds, that’s what we need.
I think people are held down by a lot of rules and people who get funding from whatever you know? We just need one person from each community, each organisation, standing up for what’s right."

"But yea, I don’t really see BBC ever being more unbiased or independent. Or as independent as they claim to be."