2024, you biscuit. You kept me on my toes, china. It’s an ardent task, wrapping up 12 months of media. This is the tenth anniversary of #DiaryOfAMediaMonitor, and after a decade of headlines, it’s time to shut the door and rummage through the splinters of what has been 2024.
The backdrop alone is terrifying, but we must start somewhere, even if it is in the darkness. Hundreds of illegal miners, still underground. Some of them are dying at #Stilfontein. They’re dragging their decomposing dead up a two kilometre drop from the darkness. There are children among them. #SlaveLabour and #Dezemba: what a way to end the year.
The single biggest story in South Africa this year was the #Springboks; they won everything. If there was a trophy we won it, we held it high above our heads and then kissed it before we brought it home to a nice shiny cabinet. We are winners. #2024Galore
The GNU belter
The cumulative biggest story would have to be the elections and the newly formed GNU. What a belter, hey? The country came out and sent all the political parties back to basics, back to 1994, back to ‘work together or else’. It’s uncharted territory, but I like it. Viva SA. #VivaGNU #2024isOur1994
If you had to ask me what the most enduring story was this year, and over the decade, it’s our favourite guy, the man who was there at the beginning … Zuma, the never let go Puma.
In January 2024 we banged down the door, starting with the #ICJRuling as South Africa scored a major win for humanity. Dricus became a household name as he clobbered his way through the UFC and Bafana got through to the AFCON finals. Wow, we were coming in hot. 2024, we banged down the door.
But it didn’t last long, all that sport and freedom fighting. It was soon left behind when Ramaphosa addressed us at a historic #SONA. Historic because it would represent the end of majority rule. We destroyed the ANC’s foothold with #SADecides. It was a ludicrous time in which we saw the birth of #MKParty … and ignored it.
Food poisoning and Joshlin
In February, we saw the first of our kids die from food poisoning. Food borne illnesses would reach epidemic proportions in our country. We would soon see hundreds of children fall victim to it. A war on #SpazaShops would follow later in the year, but at the very start of 2024, you and I happened to blink and we missed it. #FoodPoisoning #SpazaWars
Our hearts stopped as #PrettyGreenEyes spread across our timelines. Trafficked #JoshlinSmith. Ex-con turned politician, Gayton Mackenzie, interviewed the child’s mother who admitted to being on tik and kept using the term: “I’m not gonna lie to you…” and then proceeded to lie through her teeth.
We chased clothing and chaos in the region for nothing. She knew exactly where Joshlin was because she had sold her. Today this repugnant women is sitting in jail, pregnant.
This is also the first time we took ex-con turned politician Gayton McKenzie seriously. Gayton is my great surprise of the year. I’m the first to admit that I wasn’t a fan but as the days have rolled on, he’s stolen our hearts. We watched him on diet, cancelling expensive superfans and being accountable. He shared his wealth and enthusiastically tackled the job like he was part of the bokke. It’s endearing, it’s #MySouthAfrica.
Yet still today #JoshlinSmith is missing; she was Gayton’s catapult (it’s true, don’t lynch me). Listen at least we’ve got sport covered. Damn, I’m cynical. Sorry. It doesn’t get a lot better from here. 2024, I’ve kept score.
Sodwana legend
My hometown made the 2024 media line up. Sodwana’s local fishing legend #JohnMatambu and his boat was hijacked. John was murdered on the waters and Visser, the slimy perp, became the subject of a manhunt. South Africa caught Visser, our collective energy can corral this country to do courageous feats. Then the cops released him, repeatedly. He is back on the run. Justice is a word. #FindVisser
#Jooste committed suicide. This after the legal dogs were chomping at his heels. He walked out of his front door and blew his brains out. South Africans remain sceptical that this happened; but we’ve also forgotten about it. So 2024, all conspiracy and gore. #Lifman was assassinated. That’s 2024, it kept firing more.
Our madam speaker #MapisaNqakula appeared in court for corruption of R4.5 million and then, holding onto her designer wig, hastily resigned. This is the very same #Nqakula that opened the #PhalaPhalaInquiry; the very same #PhalaPhalaInquiry that we are seeing the impact of today as Ramaphosa bounces anxiously on his couch. This as the EFF push forward with his prosecution. 2024, Joshua Door.
Courtroom drama saw uBaba doing the hokey pokey with the legal system. Zuma’s resilience has become more interesting: he had a too and fro with Downer and Maughan, which flopped, but that never stopped him. Neither did it stop Dali.
Played by the old man
The #MKParty became familiar with courtroom corridors too. Gleaning experience from a tedious 20-year-old Stalingrad tactical battle with Zuma, they knew they were in the hands of a puppet master. Unlike the true registered owner of MKP, Jabulani Khumalo. He’s still figuring how he was played by the old man. #MK started with stolen logos and registration battles. This led to accusations of ballot rigging and a battle with the IEC.
It is astonishing how much chaos this 82-year-old Jacob can still cause. After his reign of decay he is still more relevant today than ever. #GroundHogDay and #DecadesOfDecay.
Elections hit us like a steam train; no one would have thought we’d be ready, but we were. It was free and fair, apparently, and MK stormed home to be the kingmaker across all parties. Except they are so defunct they can’t even turn up to work.
This left Ramaphosa to reimplement Mandela’s brainchild, the Government of National Unity. Back to 1994 we bounced and today we have Jumping John Steenhuisen in charge of Agriculture, FF Plus Groenewald in charge of Correctional Services, Hlabisa (head of IFP) in charge of COGTA and Songezo Zibi from new party #RiseMzansi in charge of #SCOPA.
Godzilla’s grenades
Helen Zille stomped around the GNU like Queen Elizabeth I and had regular head buttings with #Fikile Minister of Alles #Mbalula. She was hurling threats like hand grenades, but proved to be a particularly bad shot and failed to admit that not only had the ANC suffered a hiding to nothing at the polls but, so had she.
The DA hogged media headlines. They burnt the flag; John toyi-toyied; and they positioned themselves with the Cape Party who were going to do a #CapeExit: a Lego Cape Town type Brexit. She misjudged the masses; John jumped to the wrong tune, her moonshot pact misfired and Godzilla forgot that WE unseated the ANC, no one else.
The other parties that joined this pact were duped into standing against the ANC and today they are all back with the ANC. That’s my South Africa.
And then there was the demise of the EFF. Julius was behaving like a megalomaniac and uBaba taking roll call, something had to give. It was Floyd who became the turncoat, leaving a confused Julius still calling Floyd a brother from another mother. He also told the world that brother Floyd would always be welcome back in the EFF flock.
Two days later Juju worked out that he’d been knifed and he came out frothing, and with that the rats left the sinking ship. They all scurried to join Zoom and the gang and poor Juju was left with #khakiCarl, who’s not so khaki, in his red beret. All eyes are still on #Ndlozi to jump but it seems there is still a game of cat and mouse among the red tide, well, the red pool, like dead pool. 2024, shove it in the bottom drawer.
Ring-a-rosies in Johannesburg
In the second part of the year, the #KetangWars began as the mayors of Tshwane, Ekurhuleni and Johannesburg played ring a rosies and eventually they all fell down. We saw the horror that is our medieval healthcare system as the nation rose to help #TomLondon get out of #HelenJosephHospital.
He survived, no thanks to the Health department, but he kicked open a wasp’s nest and public healthcare still cannot manage to exit the spotlight.
What would 2024 be without Dricus Du Plessis? I touched on him earlier but we need more, because it’s 2024. He had a car crash interview early in the year, and what started as a farm murder slogan ‘Hulle weet nie wat ons weet nie’ became a national anthem.
#NoDNAJustRSA and a bunch of Springboks. Eben and Time magazine cover’s Siya entered the ring to flank this fighter turning UFC into a South African staple. He wasn’t the only sporting media comeback as we saw Tyson meet Jake Paul in what can only be described as a rigged fight. Boxing rings and other things.
#Lesufi and #Razmatazz faced off all year. He’s another one who made sure the cameras panned. #FikileMbalula has been brandished by Helen, set up by Cyril and slapped by #Panyasa. But Mbaks is still turning the other cheek, isn’t he?
It was in the final quarter of 2024 when I got banned for talking about war. ‘No Fortunate Sons’ was taken down by YouTube because they didn’t like the narrative. To be fair, no one likes to see civilians including children being killed, displaced and starved. (The video is pinned on Facebook and it stayed up because Zuks took my money.)
Mass murderer
We saw the worst of human behaviour as mass murderer #Netanyahu took victims every minute of every day in Palestine. That wasn’t enough. He stretched his long tentacles across the Middle East and Gulf and he targeted Syria, Yemen, Lebanon and Iran. Every time he was questioned, he called the question antisemitic; he used the word so often that it almost lost its impact.
The world has watched in horror as he mutilated, starved and deliberately targeted thousands of people. Who will ever forget six-year-old #Hind, stuck in a car, the dead all around her because of the relentless bombing. She was trying to make a desperate phone call when IDF soldiers shot her in her tiny head. The child was used as target practice. Genocide, no end in sight.
The Israel-Hezbollah conflict escalated significantly in 2024, and current ceasefire deals remain fragile. America has poured over a billion dollars into a tiny country on the other side of the globe. #Trump said that if the hostages are not released, those responsible (Hamas/Palestine) will be “hit harder than anybody has been hit in the long and storied history of the United States of America”.
Deadline 20 January 2025. The day he takes office. Didn’t he work out that this has nothing to do with the hostages? Hamas has tried to return the hostages over 20 times in one year. 2024, a year of war.
Trump tsunami
That’s a good lead into #Trump’s tsunami I suppose. Kamala was useless and a bad loser too. America really had no choice. And as for Biden, how did he get that far? #CreepyJoe pardoned his vagabond son, Hunter, this week after he promised his electorate he wouldn’t. To be fair, I doubt he remembers what he said five minutes ago; we’ve seen him wandering around stages, walking into bushes and declaring that he is Mrs Biden.
Do you think Americans bought that Bye-den malarky? I don’t. The guys in the back room need to update the script. It’s 2024 we aren’t buying that garbage (truck) anymore.
Trump’s been hogging headlines like Zuma. He had his ear shot, prompting Americans to walk around with plasters on their ears. But when he went to work at McDonald’s they were not sure whether to buy an apron or not. And who will forget “they’re eating the cats, they’re eating the dogs”? Bombs and bombshell blondes. And where is TrumPET right now? He’s hanging with the goonies. Elon, RFK and Joe Rogan.
Ah, #Musk, another chop that has had far too much press this year. He sent rockets to the moon when he could feed a nation. He was pro-Palestinian until he went to Israel and now he’s in office. And now he’s in office in the Dark Maga (his words) of politrix. A true Trump pet. Well, what else do you give a guy who has everything? And then there’s RFK! I like him, he is gurgling truth out there, but occasionally he gets caught with a maccieDee in his hands for a photo op.
2024? Shove it in the bottom drawer
We had more court room TV than Judge Judy
There’s a lot of anger, especially when we talk about the pastor with the panga.
Senzo, Thabo, AKA, Malema and farm killers
Liebenberg was absurd
2024 we deserve more!
A Gold Tap award must be given to #EdwinSodi as the year was dominated by waterlessness in SA. #WaterShedding, #WaterRestrictions, #WaterThrottling all became another way to say #DryTaps, #DayZero.
Runner up is the guy who forgot to turn the tap on at Joburg Water, leaving residents dry for two weeks. In another clockwise/ anticlockwise confusion, there was the chop who didn’t fill up the Joburg Gen’s hospital water supply. And they can store 11 million litres! #ChoppyWaters
Miss South Africa stayed relevant when we discovered that #Chidimma, our Miss SA, wasn’t ours at all; she’s Nigerian. After an enormous Karen-type fuss she was booted and ended up in the lead in Nigeria’s Miss Universe. We didn’t like that, so we tried to jeopardise her win by voting for a voluptuous competitor.
And then our Miss SA, Mia Le Roux, became the first deaf winner. See? You thought pageantry was dead. 2024, so much more.
The Olympics began with a horrific opening ceremony that left the world hating #Wokeness. Despite it being pitiful clickbait that deserved the hate, there were some pearlers: a shooting competitor from Turkey shot a perfect round with one hand in his pocket, spurred by a row with his wife; a wallaby break dancer Raygunn jumped around like a pet bloody kanga mate. Break dancing became a prominent Olympic sport. Is that even possible? 2024 on the dance floor. Tatjana brought it home and #Bayanda stole our hearts but overall Olympics 2024? Terrible bore.
Climate catastrophe
When they said #ClimateChange do you think they meant to say #ClimateCatastrophe. We saw the strangest weather: how can cyclones, tornadoes and tremors be commonplace in my Suid Afrika? And then snow. So much snow that Durban beach goers were building snowmen.
We saw the best of humanity, Gift of the Givers, go from cataclysm to disaster, relentless in their pursuit to save South Africans. Thank you, we are helpless without you!
Talking about cataclysmic, Putin just doesn’t give a damn; he’s on his mission, and if you dare step in the way he will, quite literally, vaporise you. It’s been quite handy being part of BRICS or Putin would be terrifying us too. “We kept the lights on just like we promised, Vlad”.
Between Enoch budgets and Ramagokpa’s magic the lights have stayed on at #Eskom. I say magic, I mean price increases. Isn’t that called racketeering when we’ll pay anything to keep our power source on? #Racketeering is a South African specialty. From cold drinks to kidnapping the nation has been stalked by this crime for generations and recently it resulted in mass killings in #Lusikisiki.
Talking about stalking
Talking about stalking, Netflix produced a screamer called #BabyReindeer and despite what the Oscars say about Barbie and Oppenheimer, this docudrama terrified the daylights out of us. We were so obsessed with the stalker we missed the real sex predators. Weinstein’s charges were dropped; we still haven’t seen #EpsteinsList; almost 100 women came forward about #MohammedAlFayed and #Masterchef will never be the same again. And then there was the oil spill that was #PDiddy. Lock him up and keep him there. Lock the door on 2024
See how I shut that story down there? Very mindful, very cutseys, very #demure. Unlike racists in parly #RomanCabanac and #RenaldoGouws. It wouldn’t be a normal year in South Africa if we didn’t have a racist fall out and Pretoria Girls High certainly takes the ticket. That #SlaveAuction at Pinelands High School was horrendous.
From spaza shops to taverns, our kids are often casualties. Even though the #EnyonbeniTavern case kicked off this year, we won’t ever find out what happened to those kids now that killing children with consumer goods is commonplace.
Pravin’s passing
Pravin passed and I have such mixed feelings about a good man turned complicit? Is that a fair assessment? I’ll never forgive him for SAA, but I’ve also seen that man fight like a lion for justice. A true South African superstar is our Tyla, who has been in the spotlight both at home and abroad. She’s a legend, this chick. Music kept us tapping as #Oasis reunited and #DefinitelyMaybe brought back good memories, but at a shocking price tag.
A few more big international stories and I’m out. They tried to sell #Mpox to Africa. We didn’t buy it, a media storm in a teacup when the real attention should have been #Sudan, where 60 000 people are dead and millions are starving.
In a year of give and take, 2024 saw the unfathomable imprisonment of #ImranKhan and the incredible fact that Julian #Assange is free in my lifetime.
If you want me to sum up 2024 in one story it would be that a banana sold for $6.2 million. And finally, my personal favourite was how #KattWilliams broke woke. And I’ll leave you with his wise words: “The truth don’t need motivation.”
Another year, another diary. It’s been surreal. Stay safe, drive sober and share love with someone who needs a hand this silly season. Peace out my country.
I’m Tonya Khoury from Acumen Media and thank you for joining my column during 2024.
