Show HN: AfriTales – Discover the Magic of African Storytelling | Hacker News Reader

Show HN: AfriTales – Discover the Magic of African Storytelling

afritales.org

42 pointsggap26 comments

Hi HN,

I've been working on AfriTales, a flutter based mobile app that brings African folktales into modern stories narrated episodes wrapped in a children and adult friendly UI player. The stories are created to cover north, south, west and east Africa. I think of it as a digital by-the-fire-side.

Why AfriTales: Cultural relevance: There is a gap in culturally-rich audio-native storytelling apps for Africans, the diaspora and people interested in African stories. Modern Influence: Modern UI makes the the app feel elegant and emotionally resonant. Retention via structure: Episodes are short (2-5 minutes) and there are stories series for premium users.

MVP features include: A launch landing page (https://afritales.org/) for early engagement and waitlist signups. I have currently sourced over 100 stories. Thanks to Google's Gemma 3 270M, users can generate stories with their own twist. Freemium model: 3 free tales per day, plus premium subscription for unlimited access. Robust Flutter structure: Architecture with TTS integration, and images for context.

I am starting in Ghana before expanding, and I'd love feedback from this community: Would you (or your child) use an audio-based storytelling app with a strong regional cultural tie? Suggestions for retention strategies or content formats that engage long-term users?

Thanks

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In early childhood someone gave me a storybook of African tales. Anansi, Legba, others I have long since forgotten. Every time I hear that the continent is not properly represented in film, and how some European tale needs to be Africanised I'm reminded of how lazy and risk averse Hollywood is. There are a hundred tales that could be told from the continent, genuinely novel and unlike anything you've read before.

Indeed, there are lots of stories that will be incorporated

Anecdotally, even the European tales told by Hollywood tend to be seen from an WASP point of view. What is the last time we saw or heard of a fairy tale from Spain or Albania?

But of course, you are right, this is orders of magnitude worse for Africa.

> The stories are created to cover north, south, west and east Africa.

Are these actually African folktales? The video seems to demonstrate only the LLM generation.

The first part of the video shows the folktale but the demo video is brief, I didn't noticed the LLM part was prominent. I will make dedicated videos.

Very nice but the fonts render as white on white background on my phone which makes it difficult to read. Screenshot: https://ibb.co/29CqpTx

Noted, I will update it to adapt to the phone background color settings

I was thinking the same thing.

Then it occurred to me:

what if the designer - writer sought to draw my attention by making me hyperfocus on the text?

That is, musicians do it with dynamics, architects do it with compression and expansion, writers do it with words, but do designers do it with the most dynamic, infinitely extensible medium on the planet that combines all of our senses and perceptions at once?

Maybe that was the point here, even if it was unintentional, bordering on magic?

Lol

iPad is similarly broken.

The contact buttons at the bottom of the web page (email, "global community," and a phone icon) do nothing: they're just span elements in divs. There's a "Twitter" link instead of "X," and it links to "@afritales," which doesn't exist.

As others have pointed out, the web page promises "cultural heritage" and "authentic stories from Africa," but the demo shows AI slop. If you're offering both, then that needs to be made more clear: highlight the authentic stories, and then make clear that users have an option to AI-generate more stories like them. If you're offering only AI-generated stories (and your words "the stories are created to cover…" make that sound possible), you need to be forthright about that, because you'll be called out, with righteous indignation, for selling AI slop as if it were a particular people's cultural legacy.

Also, speaking of "particular people," if you actually want to do something good with this project, make the provenance of each story clear and specific: not just "African," not just "West African," but "a tale from a Wolof griot, collected by Birago Diop." Africa is the largest continent of all, and its cultures are many and diverse with many different storytelling traditions.

Website says "Professional narration," but then the demo plays AI-generated audio?

It is MVP, the website is the direction

The Kikuyu fairy tale "The Warrior And The Irimũ" contains the line "I should like to teach you the dance of my people."

https://archive.org/stream/mananth13a14royauoft/mananth13a14... (1913)

I am going to piggyback and drop an interesting bit of trivia: Enid Blyton's infamous Brer Rabbit is actually an African-American. Look it up.

The oral tradition is important because of the stories it passes on. The stories themselves are the thing.

How do you square this with this feature you've added where LLMs can generate slop that has no resonance for anyone? It would seem to be at odds with the purpose of the tradition you're building your business around.

Good point, the part of the LLM is to allow a user to insert their own context into the stories. For example, an anansi story, could be adapted to use names of people if that will help the user (example parent) give context (to a child).

Has anyone said they actually want this? I wouldn't, especially for traditional folktales.

I don't see the point of doing that; the stories' power comes from myth/archetype. They're fables. Anansi is a trickster god; the characters he tricks tend to be other gods, spirits or archetypes. They're not normal people. They're already meant to teach, and connect with kids. It's been happening for centuries.

I see you identifying a need (African storytelling traditions should be preserved), which is great. But I would really recommend talking to experts in this field before monetizing features that dilute these cultures' canon.

    We do not really mean, we do not really mean that what we are about to say is true. A story, a story; let it come, let it go

So i have, oh, just a couple thoughts:

I was intrigued by the headline, but interest dropped off quickly when I realized that the whole thing seems to be about LLM generated "stories".

Honestly, I would have loved to read some genuine african tales, but I really don't care about reading LLM slop, much less do I intend to pay for such a service.

...and you compensate writers how exactly? Be specific please. Cultural exploitation no matter the nationality or ethnicity or race, in my opinion, is a worthwhile debate. If you're compensating African Writers at a higher rate than the industry that's a selling point. If on the other hand you're hiding a model where you take advantage of African Writers under the guise of promoting their work and career while you profit from them, then that's a valid reason to cheer for your enterprise to fail. Which is it?

Interesting and important point. Currently, I am not working with writers, I am first relying on stories from school, childhood, family and from friends in other countries. When I start to work with writers, they will be fully compensated. The current stories are common to anyone who grew up in the Africa especially rural.

These are folktales.

Sorry OP, but honestly? This just seems like AI slop, like someone took interesting folk tales and vibe coded generic LLM and TTS around them to make a buck. Nothing ruins the magic of storytelling like the shallow cynicism of lazy capitalism.

I'd rather just see a Gutenberg collection of African folk tales than this...

Agreed 100%.

A collection of extra-cultural tales would be very interesting. African, Asian, Pacific. But this AI tale generator is simply diluting the value of the story and insulting to the culture which nurtured such a story.

Of possible FYI: https://www.roninfilms.com.au/video/819/40/691.html as part of a larger collection: https://www.roninfilms.com.au/video/819.html

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