I grew up in a christian conservative family. Which meant that the church was the nexus around which my family orbited. On Wednesdays, after the drudgery of the school day, my mum would drag my older brother and I off to bible study where a junior pastor would spend about an hour grappling with and instructing the church on a particular section of the bible. After which he’d open up the floor for questions, and a lively debate would often ensue. Saturdays were for choir practice—not for me—my mother was in the choir. I still remember those afternoons. As my mother and the rest of the choir filled the towering hall of the church with sweet-sounding harmonies, my brother and I would stack plastic chairs into a towering pile and pretend it was a mountain we had to scale.
Sundays—expectedly—were the churchiest of days. I’d wake up to a house bristling with activity over the staid singing of Don Moen or whichever Gospel singer was my father’s latest fascination. Before long, we’d be in my dad’s car, hurtling towards church. By evening we’d again be with church members, this time in someone’s home for house fellowship. I occasionally resented having to leave a game or a movie or a book or a conversation with my brother when my mum yelled that it was time to leave for church, but for the most part I accepted it as a constant in life—like school, for me, and, for my parents, work.
At the turn of the 2010s, however, things would start to change, and my entire worldview would shift in response. Talk of the rapture became inescapable. In traffic, mostly on my way to school in the mornings, I’d see people hawking lurid pamphlets about the rapture. Their plots followed a familiar structure—I know this because my mom bought a few.
The central character in this purportedly true story was usually someone who lived a sinful life. Somewhere along the line, they would die and be taken—first to hell—and then to heaven. After which the big guy in the clouds would say something to the effect of: “If I decided to judge you here and now, you’d be condemned to hell, but I will send you back to earth to warn my people of the imminent rapture.” Church services similarly echoed this foreboding tenor and soon bible study would mostly revolve around the book of Revelations.
Then came the conspiracies: Pope John Paul was in hell as was Micheal Jackson and scores of other late celebrities. Ben 10, Tom and Jerry, Naruto, Barbie, Avatar Aang, and a host of other cartoon characters were demons from hell, let loose to propagate a sinister agenda. Of course, this seems silly in hindsight, but at the time these conspiracies were inescapable and were a source of untold emotional distress to me. As I got older, I increasingly became irreligious and began to resent the originators of such conspiracies for tainting the experience of watching my favorite cartoons with guilt. I also took it as a foregone conclusion that the days of rapidly proliferating religious conspiracies were behind us.
Last week, however, my assumption was shattered. Talk of the rapture was again inescapable, this time turbocharged by social media. Influencers with rapture convictions touted September 24th as the end of the world. In this installment of PopTakes, I unpack the rapture conversation that by and large dominated last week, and topics such as Selena Gomez and Benny Blanco’s wedding and the escalating skirmish between Tyla and Ayra fans.
Selena Gomez and Benny Blanco Tie the Knot
It’s uncanny how some events manage to seem at once inevitable and surprising. Football fans amongst us will perhaps agree to feeling that way as we watched Ousmane Dembele lift the Ballon d’Or award weeks ago. Sure, he had a fantastic season and was the clear favorite in the race leading to awards night, and yet the experience of watching him lift the award felt no less surreal. For years, adjectives like under-utilized and “injury-prone” were used in describing him and now he has won the highest prize in football.
I felt similarly when I heard news about Gomez’ and Blanco’s nuptials. They were engaged for about two years and evinced that kind of mutual respect and stability that often prefigures marriage, so on some level I knew it was only a matter of time before the exchanged marriage vows. Also, months before, in April, the duo had appeared on the podcast Table Manners with Jessie and Lennie Ware where they talked about their nuptial plans. And yet when I saw the announcement post on Gomez’ Instagram page, I was, quite literally, shell shocked. And if online reactions are anything to go by, I wasn’t the only one who felt the same. Having said my piece, I wish the newlyweds a blissful marriage.
Ayra Starr and Tyla Fans Are at It, again!
If you’re even moderately active on social media, the constant skirmishes between fans of Ayra Starr and Tyla is probably old news for you. What’s most fascinating about all of this is that the artists in question are not just on good terms but appear to be close colleagues. I guess the second puzzling thing is that the skirmishes never seem to be about anything at all. Okay, to be entirely frank, the clashes tend to be about allegations of mimicry. This time the tensions between both fanbases were revived after Ayra Starr’s scintillating Global Citizens Festival performance—yes, the one where she and Rema had a bit of a moment; there’s probably nothing to it but I’m shipping them, nonetheless. After the performance, hawkish fans of Tyla claimed Ayra had copied some of Tyla’s dance routines. Ayra’s fans in turn refuted the claims—with copious amounts of receipts by the way—and returned the allegation. I for one think the constant bickering between both fanbases is completely unnecessary, more than that I think it’s stupid. Let’s assume that Ayra and Tyla occasionally reference aspects of their respective artistry (to be clear I think that these claims are spurious) how is that a problem when the artists in question have a cordial relationship?
Rapture Prophecy—Expectedly—Turns Out to Be a Hoax
Last week, I stumbled across a tweet claiming that an intern at a South African branch of KPMG had sent out a company-wide email alerting people of the rapture. It seemed bizarre but I took it as an isolated incident. Bristling with religious fervor or in the throes of a psychotic episode, I thought, she sent a panicked email about the rapture to the over 2000 staff of the company across the world—insane but oddly in consonance with the fraught times we live in. In the following days, talk of the rapture—which zealots had pegged for September 24—became ubiquitous on social media.
I could ramble on about the cascading series of events that led to this moment or how deflated those who wholeheartedly believed the world was ending probably feel. My chief concern is why this rhetoric was able to garner a large following on such short notice. After thinking about it for a while, the answer seems obvious, at least to me. My theory is that on a subconscious level we all want release from the tumult of today’s society. Think about it, with the world increasingly flaring up with wars and divisive rhetoric and impending disasters—such as the threat of climate change and droughts—the appeal of being disappeared to heaven has an appeal that’s hard to deny.
