Just like the hapless Nonhle Thema before her, the dear self-delusional Dineo - through desperate posturing and trying to play it up for cameras to perhaps try and cast herself in the mold of a Kimora, Kendra or a Kenny Kunene - comes off more as a "mess in the making" than any kind of a mogul.
While Dineo's Diary literally seem as if it has narratively and dramatically speaking no place to go, at least Nonhle went to Hollywood.
What viewers are subjected to in this incredibly boring new local reality television low, has to it the distinct feeling of almost being a rough cut of dailies with bad editing that was done by incompetent film academy students and pushed to broadcast without any final cut or attention.
How else do you explain Dineo's Diary making multiple on-air spelling mistakes like "restuarant", ''entrepeneur" and "independant"? How else do you explain the rickety, blurry, zoom-in, zoom-out camera work like a student who just got a handycam? How do you explain the mess of a narrative that's over the course of an episode, everywhere and yet nowhere?
The half hour reality show is nothing else - and for the viewer has nothing else - than a self-obsessed and wig poking Dineo Ranaka talking about herself, showcasing herself, her child, and her boyfriend, and talking about showing herself.
Dineo Ranaka makes a point of it to irritatingly "e-nun-cia-te" - oh so overly-vowely every sentence - with a trace of the fake American accent. The soundbytes the producers and editors chose are of Dineo Ranaka making inane, rubbish statements (possible to fill dead air since cameras are hanging around) like "I'm a free person". What do you mean Dineo, and why is trash like this on television? At least those who struggle to spell know now where to find a job.
To help prop up the boring, basically non-existent narrative devoid of drama and to help make Dineo Ranaka's day(s) look busy, stale dateline interstitials are inserted between pre-arranged events. There's "Meeting" and ''Magazine cover shoot". The best self-aware quote probably comes from "friend" Sihle who remarks about Dineo Ranaka: "She's not Whitney Houston, she's not Jennifer Hudson. She must just get it together, you know."
A blatant diss (and probably hoping to cash in on artificial and fake self-referential hype) is Dineo Ranaka appearing in a party costume store with a Smurf head on in the first episode. "I am a Nonhle Thema follower on Twitter" she plays to the camera. Says a coy Dineo immediately after that also to camera: "Don't you like smurfs? ..."
As a confused viewer you have to ask yourself: Why is a so-called mogul doing the low-level task of costume shopping in a costume store anyway? What is the actual premise of this low-budget realitrash? And why is Vuzu making it look so difficult to produce just a passing grade of local South African television content?
Dineo's Diary is devoid of any depth. There's no inkling of a promise that as a viewer you're going to actually be learning more about anything or anyone else, or actually be entertained by getting a real glimpse into someone's life. The rest of the people around Dineo Ranaka come across as one dimensional reality television accessories. Ironically for a show with the word "diary" in the title, no diary was ever seen.
It would seem as if Dineo Ranaka, just like Nonhle Thema, drank too much of the Hollywood cool-aid. Dineo Ranaka seems to believe her own hype and comes across as having a huge sense of self-entitlement. She can be late for 90 minutes without consequences for her unprofessional behaviour, but when her boyfriend is late she gets upset and starts with emotional manipulation. What an unrealistic portrayal of a South African business woman.
Dineo Ranaka's fake pretension shines through when she remarks "I don't like being in the media". Yet she says it in a reality show in which she is willingly the star, while she is showcasing her boyfriend, her child and showing viewers how she fights in front of her boy, cursing and with doors being slammed.
Dineo's Diary has little respect for the TV audience. Utterances like Dineo Ranaka saying "he friggin grates my t*ts" - talking about her boyfriend - shows the type of person Vuzu has really decided to put on the air. One wonders what her toddler son, casually included in the glare of the reality cameras, will think one day when he watches mommy trying to be a reality TV star. Or what goes through his mind when he sits next to mommy when she fights with the family and uses the ''F" word as cameras capture it all. A real classy mom this one.
Dineo's Diary edits Dineo Ranaka to come across as an angry black woman either fighting, being passively aggressive, pondering what wig she'll be wearing next, or crying. How Vuzu can think this is uplifting entertainment to show to viewers, truly boggles the mind.
Dineo's Diary is boring television with no redeeming qualities and shows the dangers when a broadcaster decides to keep indulging ego-obsessed personalities with badly produced reality shows which is nothing but empty calories for viewers.
Another TV critic's take: Dineo's Diary - "psychotic delusions of grandeur".
Editor's note: Neither Dineo nor Vuzu bothered to tell any of the longest-serving TV critics and TV writers in South Africa about the show's launch or about a press event; no press material was issued to them.
Besides coming across as unprofessionally amateur from a publicity perspective, just like some movies which are sometimes given no preview by distributors, its usually immediately indicates to critics a lack of commercial faith or an unspoken perceived quality problem with the property.
