Over the years, there has been several trends on the social media space but nothing compares to the way JESUS trended yesterday. The social media has seen trends varying from songs to dance challenges, tiktok challenges, jokes, fashion, styles etc., but the JESUS trend far outnumbers them, it trended for over 12 hours.
The JESUS trend was initiated by Nigeria’s foremost gospel artiste, Pastor Nathaniel Bassey. He had gone ahead to make a post on his social media handles where he wrote, “Can we make this our profile picture at 12noon? Just thinking! Let the world ask what is going on, and we’ll tell them – ‘Jesus is going on!'”.
This he wrote with a photo of JESUS boldly inscribed in red letters.
At exactly 12noon, all social media platforms was stirred up with the photo that it stirred a lot of reactions from different persons. Many asked “Is rapture happening somewhere?” because the upsurge was too massive and not unnoticeable.
WHY IT TRENDED?
Relatable for Christians:
It is obvious that there have been several trends that the Christian folks couldn’t participate in or jump on quickly. The JESUS trend was easy for Christians from all denominations to jump on, without fear or guilt. It was really easy to proclaim the supremacy of Jesus.
Nathaniel Bassey:
He is one of Nigeria’s topmost gospel artistes who have shown exemplary traits of whom a believer should be. He organizes an annual “Hallelujah Challenge” on Instagram where Christians gather to praise, pray and worship God by 12 midnight.
His stance as an ardent lover of God also made it possible for every Christian to align, which in turn made it go viral.
The Deplorable Condition of the Nation:
Nigeria has been in a serious dilemma with happenings in all states of the Federation. There is hardly any state in the Federation yet to experience an upsurge in insecurity, religious wars, ethnic and political battles, banditry, kidnapping etc. and the trend was in another light a cry for help to the Maker for help.
Nathaniel Bassey is not a Clout Chaser:
Many anti-Christian folks have come out to discredit the whole exercise, claiming the preacher was chasing clout and looking for means to extort money from people. One of these happened to be Daddy freeze. Truthfully, Nathaniel is never a clout chaser because there are several occasions he has turned down people’s help. He even turned down a Grammy nomination.
General Acceptability:
For anything to trend or go viral on the social media space, it has to get a lot of acceptability from social media users. Many of such things that quickly get accepted are new songs, dance challenges, etc.
Which is why the name JESUS went viral to that extent, because the entire Christian community could relate to it. Social media of churches, Christians, Pastors, gospel artistes easily jumped on the trend.
The JESUS trend was met with a lot of displeasure nonetheless because people felt Nigerians should rather get their PVCs to vote out bad governance rather that spend time praying for things to change. Others have also come to lend the voice in the discuss for people to be allowed to do what works for them and that nobody is allowed to discredit one’s belief on whatever basis.
Kemi Lala Akindoju took to her Twitter handle to tell critics to learn to call out their leaders rather than always finding faults with Christian activities.
