For the past two years, my daily life has been shaped by persistent anxiety: waking every morning, reaching for my phone with a knot in my stomach and praying my name is not trending on X.

I have spent months walking on eggshells, looking over my shoulder in public and mapping out where I am going. I sometimes run in the opposite direction when I spot a politician or government official in the same room. I fear that someone might take a quick photo, strip it of context and turn it into an online propaganda campaign before the day ends.

To exist as a public voice in Kenya today is to feel suffocated by misinterpretation, quick judgments and deliberate spin.

Not long ago, journalist Larry Madowo faced a similar digital storm. Here was a reporter who had put his safety on the line on the frontline of protests, broadcasting state violence to the world as it unfolded. Yet when a video emerged of him shaking hands, laughing and talking with President William Ruto, the internet erupted.

It mattered little that Madowo was attending the wedding of a close friend who happened to be marrying the President’s daughter.

The backlash was swift and unforgiving. Similar outrage followed when Dennis Ombachi and Sauti Sol’s Bien met French President Emmanuel Macron during a diplomatic engagement.

At first glance, commentators and international observers might call this classic “cancel culture” — an online mob eager to tear down public figures over a handshake or unavoidable social encounter.

Digital toxicity

But calling what is happening in Kenya “cancel culture” misses the point. It reduces a deeply emotional, collective human experience to internet shorthand. What we are witnessing is not merely digital toxicity. It is the raw, agonising grief of a nation carrying immense pain.

Kenya is carrying unresolved trauma. The memories of young citizens killed during anti-government protests remain fresh. The blood spilt on the streets has not dried in the hearts of the families, friends and fellow citizens who loved them.

Those responsible have not been held accountable. No answers have been given, and there has been little space to mourn, process the loss or seek justice.

When a social movement is built on moral conviction and paid for in human lives, the rules of public engagement change.

The public is no longer interested in the nuances of wedding etiquette, professional networking or personal friendships. When a traumatised nation sees someone who documented its suffering sharing a lighthearted moment with an establishment associated with that suffering, it may not see a complex social interaction. It can feel like betrayal of a collective sacrifice.

Living on the receiving end of this anger is frustrating and exhausting. It hurts to watch your intentions erased or innocent context twisted into something malicious.

But recently, a trusted friend changed how I view this environment.

“Don’t be sad or angry at the outrage,” he told me. “People are simply holding you to the exact standards you set for yourself over the years.”

That struck me.

Social pressure

When you choose to speak out and align yourself with a movement rooted in truth, morality and systemic change, you help raise the bar for yourself and others. In a country where institutions, courts and oversight bodies often fail to deliver justice, public opinion and social pressure become some of the few tools citizens have to enforce boundaries.

The backlash is not necessarily about destroying individuals for sport. It can also be a desperate attempt by a hurting public to say: We will not let this trauma be swept aside. We will not allow those in power to feel comfortable, validated or humanised through people we trust while our young people are in the ground.

Navigating this climate is frightening, and innocent people can be caught in the crossfire of misinformation. But we cannot resolve the tension without acknowledging the wound beneath it. We are a nation that has not been allowed to heal.

Until there is meaningful justice, transparent accountability and genuine recognition of the loss, many people will hold on to their anger as a shield.

It makes life uncomfortable and turns being a public figure into a minefield. But at its core, that anger is love, memory and grief refusing to be silenced.

It is the sound of a country stubbornly, fiercely refusing to forget.

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The writer is a journalist and human rights defender. hanifa@odipodev.com