With great power comes great responsibility, and this past year showed us more than a few artists were willing to flex, or attempt to flex, this power through social media. Many found great success, like DJ Khaled using wacky Snapchat videos to propel himself from occasional ad-libber to pop culture icon in the eyes of the media. Although for some artists, things didn’t go exactly as planned. By keeping a few things in mind, many of the blunders we witnessed play out in social media can be avoided in the future:
#1 DON’T Bite the Hand that Feeds You
By far biggest beef of 2015 involved rappers Meek Mill and Drake. Here is the tweet that started it all:
To sum it up, Drake allegedly collaborated with other artists for his album (unheard of, right?), and Meek decided to call him out on this via Twitter to express his dismay with Drake for not properly promoting his then newly-released Dreams Worth More Than Money. Drake, being the emotionally driven man he is publically known to be, did not take this offense lightly, and with good reason. For one, Drake donated $75,000 to Meek Mill’s former high school in an effort to improve academics and reduce violence. Rumors swirled that Drake was offended by this perceived lack of gratitude. Meek’s outburst, presumptively coming from his feeling of being somehow stabbed in the back, turned into a case of shooting himself in the foot. Drake quickly responded with not one but TWO diss tracks, one of which went on to be nominated for a Grammy, and by the time Meek had released his extremely poorly-received response, the damage had been done, as countless memes, tweets and articles clearly showed. The ferocity and one-sided domination of this beef has many critics thinking that Meek’s career will never recover. Any rapper interested in attacking a significantly more widely known and respected artist who has proven their generosity might want to think about this moment in social media history before doing so.
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#2 DO Anything Other Than What Stitches Does
It might have been the fact that nobody knew who he was before this instance that prompted “rapper” Stitches to start a beef with West Coast legend-in-the-making The Game, or maybe Stitches simply wanted to make his life worse in every way possible. After misinterpreting a comment online about wanting to fight, Stitches attempted to confront The Game outside of a Miami nightclub. After being denied admission and stepping up to The Game and his entourage, Stitches was promptly knocked out by The Game’s manager. Unfortunately for Stitches, his problems did not end there: at an earlier point in this beef, Stitches made the claim that The Game’s friends were in reality his friends, and that The Game was not a real Blood. Not one to be misrepresented, The Game corrected this statement by having Stitches “best friends” set him up and jump him in broad daylight, beating his face into a bloody pulp.
https://youtu.be/uaohkTtZXK4
While these two men may not have seen eye-to-eye on many issues, it is almost certain that Stitches is now seeing red. On the bright side, Stitches’ career in the music industry was unaffected. Note: Stitches career in the music industry didn’t exist to begin with.
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#3 DON’T Press a Crazy Person. Let Them Be Crazy. Over There.
Wiz Khalifa made the mistake of even suggesting shade towards arguably one of the hottest heads on social media. In a post in which he talked about weed and other things, Wiz made comments that vaguely alluded to Kanye’s new album then titled Waves and finished by saying he was off to smoke some “KK” which Kanye assumed was a dig at his wife. Bad move. Kanye West is the most talented and creative human being that ever lived, with the most beautiful wife of all time, is a Black modern-day Jesus, and has magic powers — and to question any of these #FACTS is blasphemy. This perceived attacked from Wiz, which Kanye later acknowledged as a misunderstanding, prompted a storm of more than 30 tweets targeting nearly every aspect of Wiz’s life, commenting on his “cool pants,” experience with strippers, even going as far as to say that he “owned” Wiz’s child. Although the tweets were deleted, the Internet did what it does and quickly flooded timelines with humiliating memes aimed at Wiz:
Even a Shakespearean actor got into the mix:
Both parties have confirmed that the beef has been squashed, but we have yet to see what kind of impact this will have on their careers or any future collaborations. Surely Kanye was stressed making TLOP. Understandable. But should you ever find yourself at the end of some shade, make sure it’s actually shade before going HAM. You might hurt somebody.
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#4 DO Pick Your Battles Wisely
The Earth is a sphere. There are pictures. And thousands of other reasons that humanity has accepted this to be a fact. However, B.o.B seems to have been left out of this conversation, judging by his Twitter posts from the 16th century claiming that the world is flat. A wild statement on its own, this story got even stranger when renowned astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson made his thoughts known. Tyson attempted to explain some of the science to B.o.B., but it was clear he had already made up his mind, following up by releasing “Flatline”, a track that contained numerous disses directed at the scientist who has been a pioneer for African-Americans in the field of astrophysics.
“Flatline” sent the web into a flurry, with those (very few) who stand with B.o.B. on his flat Earth taking to social media to defend this ridiculous view. Naturally, Tyson had to respond to this attack on his credibility and the work to which he dedicates his life. But not having quite a way with rhymes as he does spacetime, he employed his nephew to pen a response, “Flat to Fact”, over Drake’s “Back to Back” beat. And if streams are any measure of who came out on top, Team Round Earth wins by a cool 400,000.
It’s cool to have a dissenting opinion and swim against the tide, but throwing shots at one of the Internet’s most loved personalities, on an issue that anyone with a cheap weather balloon and a camera can figure out for themselves, is not a wise choice. B.o.B. quit while he was behind, tweeting “if my tweets are rattling the tiny little cages of your reality … the unfollow button is right there” Only time will tell what this experiment has cost the Atlanta rapper.
