Big Cabal’s Zikoko magazine has successfully positioned itself as the go-to online publication for Millennials and Gen Zers. You don’t need to follow them on Twitter to see their content on your timeline because every other person is sharing it. Zikoko has its finger on the pulse of youths, ensuring they deliver content on the hottest trends. It’s no wonder the platform is a regular on our hot list weekly, usually in the top 50. Why is Zikoko such a phenomenon? What is the online magazine’s secret sauce?
Have you come across ‘Only True Ajepakos Can Get More Than 9/13’, ‘Only People Who Speak Fluent ‘Nigerian Parent’ Can Get 10/13’, or ‘Get 9/13 To Prove You Grew Up In A Real Nigerian Home’? If you haven’t taken one or more of these quizzes, someone you know most likely has. It may feel like they did, but Zikoko certainly didn’t invent online quizzes. Buzzfeed did it before Zikoko, other platforms did it before Buzzfeed and print magazines did it before the internet became our playground. But why are Zikoko quizzes so popular?
One of the biggest struggles anyone may face is the need to define themselves and their identity. When you take an ‘are you an onigbese’ quiz, you may be doing it for the laughs, but it really feeds into your need to learn more about yourself. You may feel you’re not an onigbese, but that doesn’t stop you from wanting to confirm what you know about yourself. There are billions of people in the world and we have been wired to want to categorize ourselves somehow even if it means trying to find out ‘which kind of pepper soup you are.’
The psychology behind it all can be linked to the theory of narrative psychology, which is that we string events together to make stories that form a bigger picture over time to explain who we are. It’s not a question of whether they are legitimate or not, these quizzes help to reinforce what we think we know about ourselves. Steven Meyers, Ph.D., professor of psychology at Roosevelt University in Chicago tells Huffpost that quizzes transcend the limits of introspection by giving us another mirror inward. When people take these tests and share the results online, they’re actually asking who they are, who they want to be and who others think they are. It may be daunting for you and uncomfortable for them when you ask your friends and family directly what they think of you, but having them comment on the result of a test may be an easier way to get the answers you seek.
Top on Maslow’s hierarchy of needs are love and belonging, esteem, and self-actualization. Quizzes feed off these. In the real world, tests are not usually fun, but Zikoko quizzes provide some introspection without being intimidating because you know the results are not likely to be something you don’t want to hear. What does it matter whether you’re chicken pepper soup or goat meat pepper soup? And what happens when it seems the results are way off? You laugh it off. If you get results that confirm what you believe to be true about yourself, you share. If the results don’t seem right, you still share. You share on social media because you want others to join in the conversation. People have a need for belonging. That’s why you may be attracted by a quiz titled ‘Get 8/10 To Prove You Grew Up In A Nigerian Christian Home’ and share the results on social media. It’s not so much about proving you grew up in a Christian home as it is about identifying with others like you who grew up in Nigerian Christian homes.
People like to start conversations, especially when they are about themselves. In a study by researchers at Harvard’s psychology department, findings show that people prefer talking about themselves to talking about anything else. Essentially, self-expression causes a biochemical buzz that makes you feel good. You’re saying you’re knowledgeable about Nigerian songs when you share the results of a quiz like ‘Can You Identify Nigerian Songs By Their First Lyrics?’ Sharing the result of a quiz lets you say something about yourself without coming across as vain.
While Zikoko’s quizzes are among their most shared content, their listicles and articles are just as popular. Regardless of the format, their content is relatable. Consider ‘Only True Ajepakos Can Get More Than 9/13’ or ‘24 School Books Kids Born In The 80s And 90s Will Remember’. If you’re a Nigerian millennial, you’re likely to be hit with a wave of nostalgia or appreciative giggles when you take the quiz or read the story.
Zikoko’s content wins with Gen Z, perhaps as much as it does with Millennials because the former is like the latter in many ways. Millennials are woke and Gen Z may be even more so. Zikoko content reflects this. With content categories (called Zikoko stacks) such as What She Said, The Secret Naira Life, and Sex Life, they tackle feminism, money, and sex. They talk about these issues in the same language their audience speak, using the voices of other Millennials like them. It’s simple and to the point, well suited to reading on their website and sharing on social media. Their style makes you feel like you’re listening to a conversation with close friends who don’t have any trouble telling you about their secret sex lives, pain from their past, or exactly how much they earn. In many of these stories, the subjects are kept anonymous, but if anything, it makes them feel more authentic. Zikoko is helping to shape a culture where young people can simultaneously laugh and seriously discuss topics that were once taboo. One minute, you’re reading an article about the worst sexual experiences of real people and the next minute, you’re taking a quiz to let Zikoko guess how many people you’ve slept with.
Anyone can read Zikoko’s articles and get it. The language is simple. The sentences are straight to the point. The articles aren’t long and hard to read. They make you feel like you’re in a conversation, unlike the more ‘traditional’ style adopted by the likes of Quartz, for instance. This is not about which style is better but about who the audience is. Zikoko magazine needs to communicate with its audience in a way that resonates with them and it scores top marks there.
There’s undoubtedly a great deal of creativity involved in what the magazine does. In the words of Fu’ad Lawal, editor-in-chief at Zikoko and head of content at Big Cabal Media, “everybody at Zikoko is mad.” Describing the creative process at Zikoko, he says he does not “believe in the concept of the perfect work.” There is a focus on consistent experimentation to hit the mark. Fuad says, “ I believe in experimenting with all kinds of things, then when you find something that works, you keep it.” Could you call the Zikoko team fearless risk-takers? Maybe. Especially when – speaking to his team – the editor-in-chief makes a statement like “you people are going to put us in trouble, but do it anyway.”
Marketing professionals around the world have not stopped working hard to figure out Millennials – what they like, how they think, and what makes them laugh. People belonging to the Millennial and Gen Z generations are interested in a more complex cocktail of humor. Comedians who relied heavily on making jokes about physical disability aren’t as popular these days. Such antics cannot be expected to survive our woke era. Zikoko’s humor is more sophisticated. It’s also realist. We can laugh at the magazine’s jokes because they remind us of painful, sometimes nostalgic situations we have experienced ourselves. Most likely, it works because the people producing this content are like us in this regard, having lived similar experiences.
But realism is only one ingredient. Good old wit, irony and puns are also in the mix as are self-deprecation, universality and absurdity. In a globalized world where there’s less interaction in person, self-deprecation works because it allows us relate to the people we’re interacting with. Here’s an example:
Of course, no one’s face really looks like a Lagos road, so we can laugh at ourselves and others like us. The concept of universality makes it possible for the target audience to look at a photo and deduce what the author is trying to say. This applies primarily to memes. For example, this meme was shared on Independence Day:
Clearly, the old man with a baby’s body is intended to represent Nigeria. Any Nigerian who is unsatisfied with the situation in the country will understand. Another reason Zikoko’s memes hit the mark is their utilization of the absurd. The target audience is expected to simply get it. It may take a few seconds, but when you do get it, you have a good laugh.
Zikoko produces great content, but ultimately, it’s not just about the content. It’s about the emotion it evokes from the target audience and that’s what draws people in. On September 14, 2020, Zikoko published a Naira Life story about a young lady who had struggled all her life. When asked how much money she needed at the time, she responded saying, “₦300k. Half of the house rent, my siblings’ fees and food.” Exactly one week later, on September 21, 2020, Fu’ad tweeted that readers of Naira Life had sent her 320,000 Naira, a DSLR and a new phone. In the article, she had also mentioned she wanted a new phone for her photography hobby. This was a case of strangers banding together to help someone, much like a physical community might for one of their own. It wasn’t the technical quality of the writing that pushed them to do this. It was emotion.
For Zikoko to be so great, it means the people responsible for creating the content must be doing a great job. Speaking to Afoma Umesi on her blog, Ope Adedeji, editor at Zikoko says what she loves most about working there is the talent. She likes that “everybody is sort of fullstack…and capable of working in diverse roles in a magazine.” Fu’ad explains that at Big Cabal Media, “there’s a manual of sorts to guide the entire creative team to be fullstack.” This means they can write, produce video and audio content, take photos, and promote themselves. Essentially, everyone on the team becomes a one-man army. However, at the same time, they are allowed to specialize.
As far as Fu’ad is concerned, “the most formidable creative force in the country right now is at Big Cabal.” If this is indeed true, it would be worth considering what makes them so. Could it be the hiring process which Fu’ad describes as hunting? He admits he’s constantly stalking media companies and social media for people who do interesting work. Combined with a filtering process he thinks is “impossible to scam,” Zikoko seems to have found the ideal recipe for their talent recruitment because they’ve never regretted any decision made through that process. When hiring creatives, they focus less on experience and more on perspective because as Fu’ad puts it, “you quickly realize that a lot of creativity is about perspective.” Perhaps that’s the essence of what does it for Zikoko magazine – perspective.
Korayday 