This week’s Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp outage sent us hurtling back to the dark ages of sending text messages and horrifyingly, being forced to talk to people in real life.
When it comes to surviving during such hostile times, the first name that springs to mind is celebrity adventurer Bear Grylls. The Eton College graduate has shown us how to make a wetsuit out of a seal, how to turn a snake into Frube-like water (read: urine) bottle, and how to fashion a tent out of a camel carcass.
Why? Well, just in case. And because he’s like the edgier, more metal version of a home DIY blogger.
So when this news of the outage came earlier this week, our minds were all cast back to Grylls’ best moments, and comedian Munya Chawawa’s hilarious parody of how our hero Grylls may have reacted during the outage hit all the right notes.
Chawawa shared the sketch with his 860,000 Instagram followers yesterday once Instagram was back online.
The video opens with Chawawa lying on his floor, saying he has been motionless “like a sloth, or a climate protester”, but expressed that he has to keep moving in case he dies.
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“Although Instagram might be down, I’ve found that by double-tapping certain items I can generate heat, which will stop my organs from freezing,” he said as he pressed buttons on his oven.
Now that he’s got a way of keeping warm, how can he communicate with his loved ones?
“I can’t comment on people’s posts so I’ve been learning to communicate with them in real life, in fact, I’ve even started to make my own emojis, this one’s ‘flames’,” he said dramatically as he flicked a lighter. “I won’t show you the aubergine,” he added.
Since “Bear” wasn’t able to send voice notes or messages on WhatsApp, he said he’s been forced to communicate with his loved ones using TikTok. He devised his own language, which is spoken through the sacred medium of the TikTok dance.
“I’ve developed a morse code based on dance moves,” he said before showing us the side-splitting, and the oddly sensual way he will now say “hello”.
Before the video comes to an end, he stares at a laptop before whipping around quickly to look at the camera.
He said: “Still no Facebook, I have no idea what women over 50 are talking about.”
His phone pings, sending him into a spiral of excitement. Dramatic music plays as he sprints across the room and dives onto the couch before realising it’s just Monzo.
“I’m going to have to drink my own urine,” he breathed.
Fin.
When it comes to current affairs you can either laugh or cry at the news most days — but Chawawa consistently has us in stitches with his topical sketches.
In July, he created a parody mocking racists on social media and just recently, the funnyman shared his hilarious take on the energy crisis.
Although indy100 could reach out to the real Grylls to see if he did indeed have to resort to guzzling his own pee during the outage, we’d honestly just rather not know.