Ethnic rhetoric online is set to rise by more than 50 per cent compared to last year.
When we first said we were tribeless, it wasn’t just a hashtag. It was a declaration of rebellion. We had grown tired of politicians dividing us by dialect, of people asking “ni wa wapi?” before they asked “unaonaje?”
For a moment in 2024, during the protests, it felt like we had finally broken a generational curse. Strangers marched side by side with no care for surnames or ancestral lines. We fed each other, bailed each other out, and buried each other without asking who came from where.
But it seems the ghosts of tribe never die, they simply migrate. The latest research by Tribeless Youth and Odipo Dev shows what many of us have been sensing online that tribalism has found new life on our screens. Ethnic rhetoric online is set to rise by more than 50 per cent compared to last year, with much of it being the toxic kind that brings out the worst of Kenyan society.
The same digital space that once hosted solidarity hashtags like #RejectFinanceBill and #WeAreAllKenyans has quietly become a battlefield of ethnic slurs, subtle insinuations, and orchestrated hate.
We once joked that Kenya’s real Parliament is on X. It turns out, it’s also our tribal council.
The irony is cruel. A movement born from the desire to cure the disease of ethnic politics has become the trigger for its mutation. The 2024 agitations were a threat to the political establishment not just because of our defiance, but because we exposed something they have long relied on: division. And when power is cornered, it returns to its oldest trick. Today, what we are witnessing online is strategic manipulation. Politicians and their digital mercenaries have learned to weaponise our emotions in real-time. It mirrors their tactics offline, they bait, we bite, and suddenly a movement that began with unity starts to sound like the old familiar noise of “our people versus theirs.”
Tribalism
It’s almost like a war room somewhere has a play-book titled ‘How to Break Kenya Again’.
We seriously need to isolate and directly address how the political class exploits tribalism. The tribeless identity itself may no longer be as trendy as it was during the protests, but the yearning that Kenyans have to move beyond tribalism hasn't died. It shows up again and again, especially during crises, as if reminding us that there are still many who refuse to inherit this poison. Campaigns like #WeAreAllKikuyus emerged as a powerful counter-narrative, led not by politicians, but by ordinary Kenyans tired of the endless cycle of blame and blood. It was a digital uprising of empathy and a revolt against hate. That’s what I love about this generation. We can turn outrage into art, grief into solidarity. But we should also admit that we get distracted easily. We get baited, provoked, divided and in the heat of our reactions, we forget what we were building.
The tribeless dream was never about pretending we don’t have tribes; it was about refusing to weaponise them. It was about unlearning the reflex to see identity as a vote bank or a border. Now the question is: who benefits from a tribalised society? Certainly not us. Every insult, every thread dripping with bitterness, feeds someone’s political strategy.
Each time we pile on in anger, we are amplifying a narrative we don’t control. We’ve seen this play before only this time the arena is digital, and the violence may not come with machetes, but with misinformation, fear, and algorithmic manipulation.
Remember 2007? Back then, the internet was still young. Facebook was barely three years old. There were no trolls on payroll, no bots, no paid hashtags. The killing was physical, and it was horrifying enough. Today, hate moves faster than rumour ever could. A lie posted at 8 am can become national tension by noon. The players are the same; only the tools have changed.
We can’t say we weren’t warned. What we see online is often a mirror of our reality. Kenya is once again at the edge, the difference is that now, our divisions are being livestreamed and liked. But we are not helpless. The same platforms that amplify hate can also nurture belonging. If #WeAreAllKikuyus taught us anything, it’s that we shouldn't take the bait. Counter-narratives work and unity trends too, only that it just doesn’t get as many clicks. Maybe we don’t need everyone to be tribeless yet; we just need enough of us to resist being tribalised. Enough to drown out the paid outrage with genuine connection.
Political elite
I think of the young Kenyans who still DM strangers saying “sister, stay safe,” or the ones who collect fare to bury a protest victim from a different community. The ones who showed up for Kaluma boy. That’s the Kenya I believe in, not this algorithmic hell of bots and bitterness, that the online world turns into. We can’t allow the worst parts of ourselves to define the future we fought for. For once, can we build something that power can’t hijack? Because that’s what the political elite are counting on — that we’ll tire, that we’ll forget, that we’ll go back to tribal jokes and coded hate, that we’ll cancel each other until no one’s left to fight the real enemy: corruption, injustice, inequality.
Tribeless Youth and Odipo Dev’s research shows that we're on track to engage more based on ethnicity this year than we did last year. It confirms what we've all been feeling, Kenya is being tested once again. The difference this time is that we can see it in real time. We can choose differently.
So the next time someone tries to bait you with a tribal headline, a toxic thread, a paid hashtag ask yourself: who gains when we hate each other? And who loses when we don’t? The tribeless dream isn’t dead. It’s just under siege. And maybe, like all beautiful things in Kenya, it will always have to fight to survive.
Follow our WhatsApp channel for breaking news updates and more stories like this.
This writer is a human rights defender and a journalist. [email protected]
