Creatives, it’s time to touch grass

It seems that between COVID-19’s virtual only era, South African social media users’ staggering daily screen time (well above the global average) and the plethora of AI tools which bring ideas to us in seconds, we’ve lost the art of going outside.

Instead, every creative brief sends us straight to the desktop, trawling our favourite sites, speaking to our trusted online sources and in all of this, keeping our butts firmly glued to our seats. Market research group, Nielsen, estimates that we are spending over 11 hours a day on screen time, couched in the comfort of our metal and glass boxes. And while much of our work does lend itself to this, the Nielsen group also identifies that this statistic (2024) represents 9 hours more than the average screen time for adults just four years ago.

But for creative and cultural workers, operating in this new paradigm of content and convenience, this is not enough. We are called to – as the 2020 phrase so aptly puts it – go outside and touch grass. If we are aiming, in 2026, to do meaningful cultural work rooted in the real lives of our consumers and audiences, we need to get as close to the gritty realities as possible. In my admittedly unorthodox career experience, this has meant hanging out in dingy bars, turning up to the exhibition of an artist no one has yet heard of, or most recently, signing up to a Financial Times climate change summit where I was very obviously the only non finance bro. These are not experiences that can be replicated behind a desk, or in the depths of an academic article. 

In Africa and the Global South in particular, time spent away from the screen is not retreat, it holds important significance. In the tradition of cultural theorists like Stuart Hall, the time we use to touch grass and breathe “outside air” represents our commitment to cultural understanding and preservation of our ability to better carve out and create symbolic meaning on our own terms. As artist Esther Mahlangu expresses so aptly, “I don’t follow trends, I paint my culture”.

And that’s just it – we need to create, not just aggregate and remake. Offline experiences lend the necessary insight, texture and multi-sensory immersion that allows us to think beyond our curated timelines and algorithms that show us only what we know and like already. To paraphrase Lebo Mashile’s great insight, our bodies are our “first language”. Being outside of the comfort zone, engaging with people and ideas in third spaces throws up an endless amount of tensions, and therefore creative and cultural opportunities. And in South Africa, and Africa more broadly, where tech is a burgeoning and blossoming space, and creatives are shaping global trends, we have a wealth of ground to choose from. 

And this is not only an individual crusade – it must be backed into creative systems. The iconic British-Jamaican entrepreneur and beauty mogul Sharmadean Reid rightly identifies that burnout is not a personal failure, it is systemic. If our inherent (and 24/7) demand is for our creative workers to thrive, they must be given work-mandated time to be creative. Instead of a brainstorm held in a stuffy boardroom, take the first hour to go and see a new local film with your team. Instead of sourcing images from stock imagery and popular blogs, take a team afternoon to gallery hop. And instead of making only the polished, reviewed, reverted and approved forms of creative output, pull a team together for something tactile. Much can be learned from a pottery class, a session of dynamic movement or a sports outing where it’s all unbridled passion and patriotism. Apps like Get2Guide, CityMapper and Songkick and online platforms like YoMzansi and FomoFridays do the online work of curating the best of what is on offer in our dynamic and diverse African cities. We just have to make this a priority and see it as having purpose, rather than a ‘drain’ on company resources. 

The world is very much out there and if we are to raise our standards for creative excellence, we must go out and meet it.