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In a heartwarming display of nostalgia, model Emma Too has taken to Twitter to recreate an advertisement that she starred in back in the 1990s.
The original ad, which was produced in 1997, featured Emma Too using a public telephone booth, which was a common sight in Kenya at the time.
In her recreated version of the ad, Emma Too can be seen posing in a telephone booth at the UK High Commissioner's residence.
Sharing the pictures on her Twitter account, Emma Too reminisced about the early days of her career and how the ad had helped to launch her into the limelight.
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She also shared a touching message about how much the ad had meant to her at the time.
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"Where we started in 1997 and where we are at in 2023 after I bumped into a call box the other day at the coronation garden party at the British Embassy Residence, I couldn’t resist re-enacting this KPTC 20th Anniversary ad on 1997-2023," she wrote.
Emma Too also took the opportunity to educate her younger followers about the history of public telephone booths, which were once a ubiquitous feature of Kenya's landscape before the advent of mobile phones.
"I’m sure most peeps on my timeline are like what’s that?! Well Gen Z, this used to be a stationed calling station, this particular one was an upgraded version, before this we used coins only with little or no privacy, some of the booths in later years didn’t even have doors, because you needed to queue to make a call, you could only whisper sweet nothings over it," she explained.
A traditional telephone booth, also known as a phone box or call box, was a small structure made of metal or glass that housed a public telephone.
The phone booth was often located on a street corner, near a post office or in other public areas. It was operated by the defunct Kenya Posts and Telecommunications Corporation (KPTC).
To use a phone booth, a person would first insert a coin into the coin slot located near the phone.
READ: Kenya to start manufacturing smartphones worth Sh5,000
This would activate the phone line and allow the user to make a call. In later years, phone cards were also introduced, which allowed users to make calls without using coins.
In her post, Emma Too also shared her experience of being exploited in the modeling industry, revealing that she had sued KPTC after they failed to pay her the full amount for the ad.
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Reactions
Social media users were quick to comment on how beautiful she still looks, 26 years after the original ad was released.