Postproverbial and Postmodern Aesthetics in Ify Asia Chiemeziem’s New Media Proverbs

Abstract

Postproverbials are postmodern proverbs that deconstruct the structural and semantic aspects of the traditional proverbs. They are proverbs coined either from the existing proverbs as anti-proverbs or from those that are created newly as new proverbs. The focus of this paper is to examine the tenets of the postproverbials and postmodernism found in the new media proverbs of Ify Asia Chiemeziem’s. About twenty-three proverbs are carefully selected from Chiemeziem’s Facebook wall grouped, and critically analysed according to their contents. References are made to some Yoruba, Nupe and Hausa postproverbials subject to further research. It is observed that most of the proverbs are decorated with sexual imageries, which deconstruct the hitherto held sacrilegious nature of human sex organs featuring in African proverbs. The proverbs are created for their humouristic purposes and as a tool for creating traffics on Chiemeziem’s Facebook wall. The selected new proverbs have proved that postproverbials give room for innovation and creativity, which engenders the formation of new proverbs. Postproverbials are not ethnic-based, rather, a postmodern phenomenon culturing across cultures and traditions. The paper, thus, concludes that the emerging facts about postproverbials are indications that the theory is viable and will endure the test of time.