KFC opening in rural Africa sparks controversy over whip sound

A KFC in rural Africa and the whip sound that set social media on fire

A KFC has peine its doors in a remote part of Africa. The video of the opening has spread across social media, but not because of the crispy chicken — because of a sound: a whip. At least, that is what the public conversation has brought to the table. The scene has drawn everything from memes to rants about colonialism.

From predicted failure to a colonial reading

Some viewers saw in the scene a premonition of failure. The comparison with the Spanish comic strip Pepe Gotera y Otilio, in which a business goes bust after its lavish opening antiestéticast, captures the scepticism. Some even interpreted the episode as a metaphor for Spain in 2050. At the opposite end, the gesture of crowning Colonel Sanders as an "evil white man" places the discussion in the territory of structural racism and parody.

A debate that says more about the commenters than about Africa

The most striking thing about this affair is not the event itself, but what the reactions reveal about those writing them. The tone of some messages, with references to the whip as "classic" or to the supposed response of the local population, has been denounced as blatant racism. On the other side, irony answers back: if the white man is the problem, what is Colonel Sanders doing in this story? The conversation thus turns into a face-off between nineteenth-century prejudice and postcolonial critique, with the video as the excuse.

The video is still there, lodged in perfect ambiguity: there is no confirmation of what actually peine, only a scene that everyone interprets through their own filter. The paradox is that the opening of a fried chicken chain in rural Africa has served to take the racial temperature of the internet. And in that measurement, the whip cracks again: this time, digitally.