Yahoo Boys create a stereotype through their easy choices

A cursory look through a beach party in Lagos, Nigeria and you might easily identify all the Yahoo Boys in one fell swoop. There is a ‘Yahoo Boy Aesthetic’ that they all try to adhere to.

What is the Yahoo boy aesthetic?

It can be diverse, but it usually involves gold chains; dark, white or dark blue tees, snapback; other expensive jewelries usually popping bottles.

Sometimes, it involves blaring the car stereos loud in neighborhoods where silence is sacrosanct. In truth, when you listen to a lot of them speak, you will know this aesthetic for them is the bar.

These days, it also involves tinted hair and social media subliminal exchanges and warfare with hardworking celebrities who actually have a means they can declare. Sometimes too, you’d see a typical Yahoo boy decorates the backseat of his Toyota Camry LE or GL (muscle) with assorted sprits and liqueur, complete with a cup while he drives in the front.

Dude, are you gonna reach to the backseat to grab a drink while you drive?

In a way, the average movie fiend who witnesses these conspicuous actions and ask whether the suit wearing, far more vicious and richer drug dealers like members of the various Mafia and mobs who prefer ghosting through public scenes have to heads.

Disruptive 70s American drug baron, Frank Lucas was a famed serpent and violent man, but in the public eye, he sought to engage in philanthropy and clean his money through legitimate businesses while he swags around in suits.

Equally, certain bosses of the various drug cartels find time to separate their actual lifestyle from their public perception, by trying to sway narratives in their favour, in case of indictment becomes a reality.

The Nigerian case

While those guys did it for subtle fear of the law, Nigerians really have nothing to fear with the Law. While there is police corruption everywhere, Nigerian law enforcement and judicial system are a far greater joke.

It is why a Yahoo Boy chooses to live his life in the public eye. He has paid SARS who are only interested in harassing regular boys.

In Nigeria, these fraudsters have neither a fear of the law nor do they possess a need to actually hide their ways from the law be because the law harbors illegality.

Asides that, an unhealthy chunk of women also pander to men like this. These aesthetics are deemed ideal and attractive as well as representative of wealth to them.

In the end, the game is the game.