Etre mannequin à Dakar, du pur Foutage.

What does it mean to be a model in Senegal? Damn right, there is no definition. Well there is no modeling definition that apply to the certain type of “models” we got in Senegal.

Before I dive into that question, I am going to start by talking about what I expect to see in a model. I mean what does a student expect to see in their teacher? A Role model, THAT’S RIGHT, someone you can look up to (iman, Katoucha, etc), someone smarter ( please note use of superlative!) shit someone you want to look like. When I look Halle Berry, who is indisputably a beauty, I think to myself “this woman looks great and her hour-glass shape is enviable”, however I could care less about how smart she is. They are models before all I don’t need her to be smart, and I could care less about her opinion on the Ivory Coast issue or what she thinks about Qaddafi’s morals, I just need her to look perfect something I would not mind looking like.  I want to see the unreachable.

Somehow, that’s just too complicated to understand for Senegalese models and modeling.

So what the fuck is going on?

Senegalese models have high body mass indices and stretch marks (I have those already I don’t need to see it on your ass, I have my own thanks.), they don’t work out, their skins are bleached, and their skins have spots due to wearing a skin that’s not yours and now you want to be a swim suit model….  With spots on their legs looking like damn runaway leopard. The fuck would I want to look up to a model that has self-inflicted skin disease; what happened to natural assets etc… abs, strong legs, perfect teeth….where the hell did they go? Too harsh NK? Sorry, it’s your job to look good, work it out!

What makes stars…. stars, well think about it, they high up there, we want to reach them, if you are a basic chick; you just basic and regular, like the rest of us, find yourself another job… If you got something everybody got, then what’s the point? People who know me know I am obsessed with having abs, a nice fire hot 6-pack, but would I want a six-pack if everybody got one? I don’t know…. Permettez-moi de douter…

I am definitely not saying that you have to be skinny to be a model. Being skinny is kind of an hereditary thing, this is why you always have that one friend who eats twice as much as you and who doesn’t gain a pound, HOWEVER, additionally taking into consideration that we are Senegalese and African and curvy, we need models that look like us, we can’t look up to modeling standards from another race. All that shit is fine, but I need Senegalese models, ANY MODEL to be special somehow.

Modeling in Senegal is a joke. Anybody who did not make it in the tassou, mbankat industry is a model by f*cking default. Models in Senegal are more of socialites then anything, I’m not going to cite any names because I am sure somebody who reads this blog knows the models here I’m talking about, the extremely REACHABLE ones who all look like each long lost twins (“we don’t die we multiply”), on heels they can’t walk in, bleached with “natural bresilian hair”, skintight short dresses, and polka dots leg, with  so much make-up they look like they are living versions of photoshop . Do you think Tyra banks can step up somewhere and not have the whole planet come ask for an autograph, I never seen that happen….here…. no wonder why…. To be a model in Senegal, in addition to all my ranting above, you don’t have to be on the runway or in magazines, you just have to appear in a Salam Diallo’s video or somebody else, go out to all the jetsetters places, drink and dance and find yourself a soccer player to date, and call it a night.

Ps: please note that there are obviously exceptions to everything, but in this situation, the exceptions are either retired, international or with God (RIP). C’est dommage.