The stats are evident and tackling this has not been easy. The rate at which this is happening is borderline rage-baiting or ignorance and, in some cases, a mix of both. Personally, I will lay it at the feet of our general dislike for math during our formative years of education.
What is this writer talking about, you ask? Well, if you have been on Ghana music Twitter for some time now, you have most likely seen artists, stans, and even entertainment journalists often misinform people when it comes to quoting numbers and stats.
It is great to see artists achieve great things in their careers, but when people are blinded by the need to rub things in the faces of their “opps,” misinformation enters the chat. That is what we are currently witnessing online. Sometimes these things are overlooked just to protect the ego of artists, but it has gotten to a time where the truth must be upheld regardless of whose ego is bruised. A bruised ego is a small price to pay to uncover the truth.
One of the key influencers of these fake stats is the need for validation and bragging rights. However, if your need for bragging rights is so high, why not just go a step further to ensure that the numbers you put out are the truth?
A few years ago, artists could get away with quoting fake streaming stats, but thanks to platforms like Tune Stats, we are seeing the reporting of the real state of numbers and stats as far as some streaming data is concerned. While outfits like Tune Stats are dealing with some part of numerical fraud, one area that needs attention in proper fact-checking is event centers and concert attendant reportage.
For far too long we have seen some artists and their teams cook up their own numbers whenever they organise events just to make themselves look good. Again, there is nothing wrong with shoving your success down people’s throats. People like to shove things down their throats. But even in those cases, they are mindful of what they shove.
I cannot speak for other countries, but what I have seen as a Ghanaian is that we do not fully understand how to process and present numbers and percentage-driven data. Which is why I feel we are like that because of our dislike of math in general. Perhaps its time to allow ticket platforms to display ticket sales numbers to validate claims by artists and their teams regarding certain numbers quoted.
For free events, we should be able to find ways of accurately presenting numbers instead of running with whatever numbers make the artists look good. At the end of the day, stans will always be stans, so it is normal for them to push such falsehoods. However, artists and people in the media need to do better.
