Over the past weekend, a number of edited celebrity pictures went viral on social media. The pictures turned memes portrayed the personalities as the opposite gender.
The graphics was a source of laughs for many as the female personalities were edited with beards as their male counterparts were enhanced with wigs.
Nobody was spared as the memes of the politicians, TV anchors, radio personalities made rounds on various social media platforms.
Citizen TV's Jeff Koinange alter-persona was referred to as Jedidah Koinange, Waihiga Mwaura - Wairimu Mwaura, Rashid Adhalla - Rachel Abdalla, Lulu Hassan was converted to Luke Hassan and NTV's Ken Mijungu was labelled Kendra Mijungu.
Celebrities too got with Kaligraph Jones named Kaligraph Jane, Nadia Mukami - Ndegwa Mukami, Stivo Simple Boy - Stella Simple Girl and MC Jessy turned to MC Jessica.
Speaking to Kenyans.co.ke, Maina Ndegwa, 23, explained the process that led to the funny memes and the feedback he got after posting them.
"It was just an idea that came up real quick when I was doing some memes for my wall on Adobe Photoshop. I thought to myself what if I tried something new that's never been seen before like a gender change.
"I chose a couple of musicians that I'd first try out their pictures and I like the results so I made more. I spent the whole night making them and ended up with 60 pictures," explained the final year student pursuing Mass Communication and Journalism at the Technical University in Mombasa.
The visual narrator added that when he posted the pictures the following day, they went viral as people shared them widely.
He further stated that he got positive feedback from a number of celebrities with some even posting their pages.
Ndegwa's page on Facebook has over 84,000 followers where he posts common Kenyan situations using pictures of popular figures.
"I love radio and would love to venture in it but mostly during my free time I write funny stories which I call meme threads because I use pictures of prominent Kenyans.
"I also make memes for brands for their marketing purposes and campaigns and also as an influencer," he recalled.
Referencing the projects he's been able to carry out, the 23-year-old believes that the digital industry bears immense opportunities for young people.
"Everyone is online looking for content so it is up to content creators who are the actual sellers in this market.
"It a big space for everyone to come to sell his/her content and just like any other market, the best product sells and the best part of it is that you can sell from anywhere. As long as the audience likes the content," Ndegwa observed.
