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You’ve been seeing Africa all wrong. These stunning photos will fix that.

It's time we see Africa the way it wants to be seen.

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It’s hard to tell where our collective misconceptions around Africa came from.

Pictured: Not a country. Image by NASA/Wikimedia Commons.

Whether it's western privilege or something else altogether, we’ve been getting Africa wrong for a really long time. In media, movies, and TV, the western world is guilty of talking about Africa as if it is a homogenous place filled with only war, famine, disease, and large aggressive animals ready to murder. Honestly, it's become embarrassing. 

South African comedian and "The Daily Show" host Trevor Noah is here with the truth. GIF from Comedy Central.

If your understanding of Africa started and stopped with "The Lion King," here's a brief overview.

Africa — the world’s second largest continent — is home to 55 countries and a full one-seventh of the world’s population. It’s so large that if America were superimposed on top of it, the lower 48 states would only cover about one-third of the continent, about the size of the Sahara desert. 

Africa contains multitudes — dozens of languages and nationalities, climates ranging from desert to jungle. There are tiny villages and bustling metropolitan cities with infrastructure rivaling any in the developed world. Africa is modern and ancient, but mostly it’s everything in between — and this in-between is where some of the most fascinating and authentically African stories are found.

In 2012, Peter DiCampo and Austin Merrill started a Tumblr named Everyday Africa to fight back against media and cultural stereotypes of the continent.

Beryl and Peter got married in August 2014 in their hometown of Bukavu in the Democratic Republic of Congo. I remember how Beryl shared with me how Peter pursued her for many years. Both were away – she studied in South Africa and he had a job in Canada – but not a day went by without contact between them. His persistence paid of as Beryl realized what a great guy Peter is. They got married. Their wedding had several parts to it – a combination of local tradition as well as western influence. Their celebration was spread over several days. I photographed their wedding portraits around the town and we stopped by to shoot in some of the most familiar places - like in here the marketplace in Bukavu. It will soon be two years since this day and I just found out that Beryl and Peter just recently had their first child! Cheers to them and their growing family. Bukavu, South Kivu, Democratic Republic Of Congo. Photo by Jana Asenbrennerova @asenbrenenrova #drc #drcongo #africa #wedding #love #bukavu #asenbrennerova

A photo posted by Everyday Africa (@everydayafrica) on

In their experience, conventional media only talked about an Africa ravaged by disease, war, and famine. The reality they knew — through years of working and living on the continent — was very different and much more interesting.

Several times a week, Everyday Africa’s Instagram shares photos of real African life. There are people, places, art, fashion, sports, food, culture, and architecture — most of the images are captured with cellphone cameras.

Look through the stream — or its photojournalist database — long enough, and you’ll notice how familiar it all feels. People shop for groceries; they get their hair done; they skateboard, ride bikes, go to work. At a time when politicians are trying to get elected by sowing fear of immigrants and the unknown in other continents, it is refreshing and comforting to see how similar — and sometimes mundane — our daily lives really are. 

Three years later, the boundary pushing that started with Everyday Africa hasn’t stopped.

Bonteheuwel, a so-called coloured township, was created to house people of mixed descent, many of whom were victims of forced removals form areas that were declared "whites only" under the Apartheid government's Group Areas Act. Despite the fact that my parents both grew up in Bonteheuwel, today was the first time I properly learned about Ashley Kriel through watching Nadine Cloete's documentary Action Kommondant. He was a tireless political organiser during South Africa's state of emergency, the dark years of the 1980s. He was known for his powerful speeches and his magnetic personality. He was an uMkhonto we Sizwe soldier, 20 years of age when he was murdered by the Apartheid police. Role models are often cited as lacking in the townships so it is fitting that the poster is titled "Ashley Kriel, The pride of Bonteheuwel". Photograph by Barry Christianson @thesestreetsza #thesestreetsza #bonteheuwel #capetown #southafrica #ashleykriel #actionkommondant #everydayeverywhere #everydayafrica

A photo posted by Everyday Africa (@everydayafrica) on

Photos from Everyday Africa have been featured in Time Magazine, The Guardian, and The New Yorker, among others. The site also inspired a student curriculum from the Pulitzer Center, where kids can explore how the photos challenge their impressions of Africa, and then they can take a series of photos of their own daily life.

Everyday Africa has also become part of a larger network of "Everyday" sites. There’s Everyday Eastern Europe, Everyday Bronx, Everyday Mumbai — all with their own networks of contributors and fans. 

As DiCampo said in 2013, “I want people to use this anywhere they feel it’s needed to change people’s perceptions. Whether that’s a continent, a country, a city or a neighborhood, it’s really up to the person who has chosen to take that on.”

Art mirrors life! In passing this morning on Ngor beach. Photo by @malinfezehai #dakar #senegal

A photo posted by Everyday Africa (@everydayafrica) on

The images we see of our world define how we think of it. Every photo Everyday Africa's network of photographers posts helps reframe western narratives about its subject.

There will always be war and famine in our world. By virtue of its size and population alone, Africa will inevitably be home to some of that. Projects like Everyday Africa are helping ensure that isn't the only story the rest of the world sees. 

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ACUVUE launches a new campaign to inspire Gen Z to put down their phones and follow their vision

What will you create on your social media break? Share it at #MyVisionMySight.

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If you’ve always lived in a world with social media, it can be tough to truly understand how it affects your life. One of the best ways to grasp its impact is to take a break to see what life is like without being tethered to your phone and distracted by a constant stream of notifications.

Knowing when to disconnect is becoming increasingly important as younger people are becoming aware of the adverse effects screen time can have on their eyes. According to Eyesafe Nielsen, adults are now spending 13-plus hours a day on their digital devices, a 35% increase from 2019.1. Many of us now spend more time staring at screens on a given day than we do sleeping which can impact our eye health.

Normally, you blink around 15 times per minute, however, focusing your eyes on computer screens or other digital displays have been shown to reduce your blink rate by up to 60%.2 Reduced blinking can destabilize your eyes’ tear film, causing dry, tired eyes and blurred vision.3

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Mom who packs her child a meal when going out to restaurants has parents fired up

Does she have a good point?

via UnbreakableMomma/TikTok

Karlie Smith shows the meal she's bringing to the restaurant for her son.

A mom who admitted she packs her 2-year-old a meal when they go out to dinner has started an interesting debate on TikTok about restaurant etiquette and how it applies to young children.

The video posted by Ohio mom, Karlie Smith (unbreakablemomma on TikTok), has received nearly 600,000 views and has over 1,850 comments.

“Call me cheap, call me whatever, but if we’re going out to a restaurant, I’m packing my kid a meal," Smith, 21, said in her post. "I do this for many reasons. On Friday nights, my family and I get together, and tonight, we’re getting food out. My son is not getting food out.”

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Man rewatches shows from his childhood and his recaps of the bonkers storylines are priceless

Rob Anderson's hilarious recaps of shows like "Mighty Ducks," "Beethoven," and "7th Heaven" might make you wonder how they got made in the first place.

@hearthrobert/TikTok

These plots makes zero sense.

While there are no doubt some timeless classics from our childhood that remain every bit as amazing as we remember, many are straight-up cringey upon a later viewing. Really, it’s to be expected as societal viewpoints change…sort of a marker of how far we’ve collectively come.

And so, what do we do with these problematic pieces of old-school pop culture? Well, we can certainly update them to better reflect a more modern attitude, but that also comes with a set of potential problems. Or we could simply never watch them again. Certainly an option given all the content out there. But then we might miss an opportunity to better understand what seemed to work for the mainstream then, and why it doesn’t work now.

And then there’s the third option—allow ourselves to be entertained by their cringiness.

That’s certainly the route taken by Rob Anderson. Over on TikTok, Anderson has taken ultra-popular movies and television shows from his childhood and given them hilarious recaps capturing how absurd some of the storylines are.
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Homeless man catches family's two children and dogs dropped from burning apartment building

"He was right underneath and he was like 'Yes, throw your daughters out, I'm going to catch them, I'm going to get them.'"

CBS News|YouTube

Man catches entire family as they jump from burning building.

House fires are devastating for families. In a matter of minutes, you could lose all of your belongings and a place to live, or worse, you could lose loved ones. A family in Phoenix, Arizona, recently found themselves facing the reality of their own home in flames. Claudia Jimenez told CBS News that she woke up trapped in her burning apartment with her two daughters, with nothing to do but yell for help in the hopes that someone would hear her.

The mom's screams were answered by Joe Hollins, a homeless man who was camping nearby with his wife. Hollins didn't hesitate to try to find a way to help. With no way out and the fire department still nowhere on the scene, Jimenez had to trust the stranger who was standing below.

"He was right underneath and he was like 'Yes, throw your daughters out, I'm going to catch them, I'm going to get them,'" Jimenez told CBS.

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Woman decides that she is the love of her life and marries herself at her retirement home

“I said, you know what, I’ve done everything else. Why not?”

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77-year-old woman decides she's the love of her life and marries herself.

We joke about marrying ourselves or a platonic friend if some arbitrary amount of time has passed without a proposal from an imaginary suitor. And sure, some people do wind up marrying a friend in more of a business arrangement, but it's not very common that someone follows through with marrying themselves.

Dorothy "Dottie" Fideli, decided that she was going to break the mold. The 77-year-old sat down and thought about all of the things she had done in life and who was with her the entire time cheering her on. It was an easy answer: herself. She was her biggest cheerleader, the person who always showed up and the love of her life, so Fideli made the plan to marry herself.

On a beautiful May day, friends and family gathered in the O’Bannon Terrace Retirement Community, where Fideli is a resident, to witness the ceremony.

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12-year-old Texas girl saves her family from carbon monoxide poisoning

She knew something was wrong with her mom and brother, which wound up saving her whole family.

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Fort Worth 12-year-old helps save family from carbon monoxide poisoning.

Carbon monoxide is called a silent killer for a reason. Many people don't realize they're experiencing carbon monoxide poisoning before it's too late. The gas is colorless and odorless and tends to have a sedating effect that causes people to sleep through the fatal poisoning. Having carbon monoxide detectors is one of the most effective ways to identify the gas before it's too late to get out of the house, but not every home has one.

A little girl in Fort Worth, Texas, experienced a terrifying encounter with the deadly gas, but her quick actions saved her entire family. Jaziyah Parker is being held up as a hero after she realized something was wrong with her family members and called for help.

The girl called 911 after she noticed her mom pass out. On the call with the dispatcher, Jaziyah says she thinks her mother has died before explaining that there was something now wrong with her baby brother, who was just 5-months-old.

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In a touching, unscripted moment, Drew Barrymore rushes to comfort a crying audience member

"Are you okay?"

via Eva Rinaldi/Flickr

Drew Barrymore speaks during the FLOWER Beauty launch at Westfield Parramatta on April 13, 2019, in Sydney, Australia.

Drew Barrymore, 48, has been in the public consciousness since she starred as Gertie in 1982’s mega-blockbuster, “E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial,” a performance that earned her an Oscar nomination for Best Supporting Actress. So, it makes sense that many people of a certain age feel as if they’ve grown up with her.

Barrymore has consistently starred in hit films and movies that are rewatchable cable-TV staples, such as “Charlie's Angels” (2000), “Never Been Kissed” (1999), “Scream” (1996), “The Wedding Singer” (1998), “50 First Dates” (2004) and “Fever Pitch” (2005).

Now, she’s an even more significant part of people’s lives as the host of “The Drew Barrymore Show,” which runs every weekday on CBS. So far, the show has been a big success, attracting an average of 1.21 million views per show, and ranks as the #4 talk show in syndication. It was recently renewed through the 2024 season.

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