Com o surgimento das redes sociais, a performance de feminilidade e desejabilidade em Angola encontrou um novo palco. Muitas mulheres começaram a “assumir a troca”: por definir os seus termos, ao nomear o seu valor, e por escolher o seu benfeitor—as chamadas gestoras. O que antes era escondido com vergonha tornou-se tendência, até mesmo motivo de humor. Um símbolo de astúcia, estratégia e soft power. Mas por baixo dessa tal astúcia está uma verdade que já conhecemos: o homem continua a pagar. A mulher continua a negociar o seu valor em função da provisão masculina. As condições mudaram, mas a dependência permanece.

Essa é a parte que hesitamos em admitir, não é? Que isto, também, é uma espécie de cativeiro. Que pode parecer controlo ou agência, mas continua a ser moldado pela mesma precariedade estrutural. Uma precariedade que decide quem é protegido, quem é escolhido, quem é deixado para trás. Uma precariedade que recompensa a desejabilidade enquanto pune o envelhecimento, a gravidez e as expectativas emocionais. E quando a sobrevivência está na linha, há pouco espaço para jogos de poder.

With the rise of social media, the performance of femininity and desirability in Angola found a new stage. Many women began to “own the exchange”: setting the terms, naming their worth, choosing their benefactor. The so-called gestoras—managers of multiple pagantes. What was once hidden in shame became trendy, even humorous. A badge of wit, strategy, and soft power. But beneath the cleverness lies a truth we’ve seen before: the man still pays. The woman still negotiates her value in proximity to male provision. The conditions have changed, but the dependency remains.

That’s the part we hesitate to admit, isn’t it? That this, too, is a kind of captivity. It may look like control or agency, but it’s still shaped by the same structural precarity. A precarity that decides who gets protected, who gets chosen, who gets left behind. That rewards desirability while punishing aging, pregnancy, and emotional expectation. And when survival is on the line, there’s only so much room for power play.

After uploading The Ballad of a Fading Empire, a friend reached out—and soon we were talking politics, philosophy and metaphysics. As he transitioned from texts to voice notes, I began to panic. Doubts crept in about my ability to respond with the same eloquence—and, ultimately, substance. But, as I listened, as I began to grasp what he was trying to explain, I knew I could not turn away from this conversation.

He spoke of metaphysics. I sat with my realism. He had a God. I had questions. We met somewhere in the static.

Until recently, replica culture lived in the shadows. But something’s changed. TikTok “luxury plugs,” WhatsApp vendors, and live-stream auctioneers—they’ve taken center stage. A new global market place, loud and open, pretending to be the original source for Chanel, Dior, Louis Vuitton, and even Hermès.

And people are buying it. Buying into it. Hungry for the illusion of elegance at a discount, they scroll and bid and celebrate.

There’s a dull ache that sets in when someone starts dressing their fear in citations and calling it courage.

A kind of exhaustion that isn’t born of shock—but of repetition.

Because we’ve heard this before.

The framing is familiar: identity in crisis, values under siege, civilization in decline, and somewhere—inevitably—a warning about Islam.

You start with reverence for institutional voices and end with a plea to preserve Christian Europe.

In between: migration framed as proxy war, refugee movements compared to Trojan horses, and a string of citations deployed like a protective spell.

It’s not insight.

It’s performance.

And it’s boring.

America—after many years of never minding her business—finally had a date with destiny. Only this destiny came in the form of an over-tanned, real estate mogul turned reality TV star who had decided that global diplomacy should be run more like a casino. In comes Donald J. Trump, a man who viewed the world less like a stage for careful negotiation and more like a yard sale where everything had to go—alliances, treaties, stability, you name it.

The truth of the matter, my dear friend, is that the world does not care if you are paying attention. Global affairs affect the economy—the war in Ukraine has spiked food and energy prices worldwide; it affects your favorite apps—TikTok or even Instagram can get banned because of geopolitical tensions; and even your future—climate policies, immigration laws, and international conflicts directly affect your daily life.

This is the world and all of its affairs. A messy, relentless, tangled thing. A never-ending project, a book with too many authors, a story that will never cease to write itself.

And you? Whether you choose to or not, are already a part of it.