No One Man Should Like All That Power

There is this new internet phenomenon ala Mark Zuck's "facemash" hitting the scene. Last night, I felt as though David Fincher himself were directing the scene that was occuring through my Blackberry, iChat and Facebook trifecta of technology. There's this new website called "Like a Little," and this shit is spreading like wildfire.

What is this website? Well, the website itself describes LikeaLittle as "a flirting-facilitator platform", whatever that may mean. It's basically Craig's List Missed Connections gone college. It is a brilliant idea, because it caters perfectly to its audience. What do college kids want? Sex. What do college kids have? Tons of time to waste on social networking websites, and massive amounts of confidence when they can hide behind internet anonymity.

The website requires you to say where on campus or which sleazy frat house (at least I am anticipating this will occur after tonight, the website's first Friday night) you set eyes on some mildly attractive co-ed. They range from the mundane, "saw you in the study lounge and you have gorgeous eyes," the creepy "I want to marry you," and the fucking WERID, "Get over here and I'll stick my field hockey stick in YOU." You have to take some of the postings, of course, with a grain of salt, because it limits nothing except the really profane, meaning that people's bored friends and jealous exes and current swooning sweethearts can post on this as well.

The website is relevant, easy to use, and addicting, all the qualities necessary for an insanely popular and highly successful social networking site. So far, the website has hit a dozen college campuses including BU, Wisconsin, Northwestern, Stanford and Wash U in St. Louis. I don't know if this was an intentional fuck-you-you-got-Facebook-first to the Ivies, but none of them have Likealittle's yet.

There comes a point when we have to wonder-how desperate are we? People are checking this website nearly obsessively to check what it says for a few reasons. One, is to read the ridiculousness that is Likealittle. But the honest reason this website is receiving such popularity is the thrill that just maybe YOU'll be on it.

In traditional faux intellect fashion, this of course relates back to Kanye West. In the "Power" Remix, Kanye declares "we ain't all gon' be American Idols/you could at least grab a camera shoot a viral." This line is such a powerful (no pun intended) declaration because it is such an accurate description of fame in the 21st Century. At this day in age, we are desensitized to fame. Not everyone is going to be Gaga or Lebron or Kim Kardashian, but because of the internet, ANYONE can have some form of fame. Likealittle is a perfect projection of this. Maybe you won't be the hottest chick on campus, but at least some guy in SM299 will notice your bright green eyes.

Like you readers more than a little,

G

808 twisted fantasies

I know I'm not alone when I say that I've been doing my best to follow Kanye's every move recently. Kanye is dropping a weekly free single with everyone from Kid Cudi to not such a kid Curtis Mayfield, and for the most part, they have been AWESOME. Good Fridays have been one of my favorite internet-music-pop culture phenomenons yet. Since we're not quite ready to free weezy, the internet is gracing us with some free yeezy. And needless to say, all this Runaway and Monster action is getting the world beyond excited for the album he is dropping in 20 days and counting.

This album--titled My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy--is going to be amazing. I can say this pretty confidently considering I have heard a pretty large percentage of the songs that are going to be on it. That's the only frustrating thing about the internet releases, is that between leaks and GOOD Fridays, I have heard 7 out of the twelve songs on the album, and I don't even have intense internet hacking skills. Ye keeps saying that the production quality will be leaps and bounds better on the album itself, so I'm looking forward to hearing the real deal, but frankly, I don't think "Lost in the World" ft. Bon Iver could get much better.

Before My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy drops, let's think about how far the Louis Vuitton Don has come since his last album has dropped. He didn't exactly let tay tay finish at the VMA's '09, and somehow got invited to perform and steal the spotlight again this past September, when he introduced the world to "Runaway" and his pink suited pal Pusha T.He went on a twitter rampage so epic it received New York Times Coverage. He stayed kind of off the radar, or at least as off the radar as Kanye can be. He didn't come out with anything on his own for a while, but collaborated with old buddy Jay Z on his Blueprint 3 hit "Run This Town" and "Hate".

808's and Heartbreaks was the album Kanye dropped in November 2008, the first album he had released since his mother passed away. At the time, I could barely tolerate the album, and most critics felt the same way. I remember thinking "Heartless" was catchy, but that was about it. A lot has happened to hip hop since 2008. Mash ups, samples, and genre crossing are now significantly more popular than they were two years ago. Electronic music and hip hop are the new vodka and red bull, and 808's and Heartbreaks is a Four Loko before its time. If 808's dropped after Kid Cudi became extremely popular, or after the rise of Dubstep, or after Raekwon and Justin Bieber collaborated, who knows what peoples' reactions would have been.

One song in particular on 808's I fell in love with on second listen is "Welcome to Heartbreak" ft. Kid Cudi. In this song, we hear the old self conscious Kanye we all fell in love with in The College Dropout days. The opening lines of the song could fit neatly alongside "we all self conscious I'm just the first to admit it." The video, featured below, isn't too shabby either.

Runaway fast as you can,

G

Eff Bee, Homie.

So let's start this bad boy off with some linkage.

So, I know it's really cool and trendy to say how much funnier SNL was in the Tina Fey and Will Ferrel golden days, but this is some top notch comedy right here. I remember the day I got an email from my brother with the subject "WTF!!!!!!" in regards to our mothers new Facebook. One of the funnier Facebook moments I can remember was when my friend Julia got "married" on Facebook, and her Grandfather (who also doubles as her Facebook friend) called her parents frantically to find out why no one informed him she was getting married.

It is kind of ridiculous that old people and our parents are getting Facebooks, especially if you think about it with this new perspective we have all acquired from watching the gem of a film that is The Social Network. If you haven't seen it-SEE IT. When I think about the creation of Facebook and Mark Zuckerberg, a number of things come to mind:
1. I first feel completely inferior, because I know nothing that influential will ever come out of my college dormroom.
2. This whole Facebook thing, which has entirely changed the worlds of social communication, photography, advertising, and a million others that I can't think of, started as a drunk dude trying to impress his bros and fuck mad bitties (although Mark Zuckerberg certainly was no bro).
3. Now that our parents, grandparents, grandfathers ex-wives, overbearing aunts, 5th grade crushes, and "that hot kid" from math class are all coexisting on this internet world, what's going to happen to all these people and their Facebook pages? When I am a working professional and have children, will I still somehow have Facebook pictures of my summers at camp and my nights out in college? Will I still be Facebook friends with nearly my entire high school?

Facebook is such a fucking mystery.

Making this link my Facebook status,
G

Run and tell that, fellow patriot.

Antoine Dodson, that ridiculous homeboy from the projects, teaches us more about the American Dream than The Great Gatsby.

Before you roll your eyes and close this window, remember that the title of this blog is, after all FAUX intellect. Now hear me out. Antoine Dodson took his 15 minutes of fame, and turned them into millions of youtube hits, facebook friends, tweets, and most importantly PAID downloads on itunes. This conniving motherfucker even somehow maneuvered his way onto The BET Awards the other night, as if he was some sort of genius black performer. In fact, he is just imploring cultural stereotypes and inviting all of America to laugh and him and his idiot sister-- whose rape case no longer matters--because stoned teenagers and bored middle schoolers get to laugh and sing along to their news interview turned autotune anthem.

This ridiculous nonsense turned chart topper, though, is what America is all about. People coming from humble beginnings taking their lives, and turning them into something more extravagant, more affluent, more...autotuned. As my friend Eddie Saviano pointed out, now all the little boys and girls watching The BET Awards can pray that one day if they play their cards right they can warn their sister's rapists that "we gon' find you."

But hell, he fucking did it. I'm sure when he's depositing his royalty checks, he's not too concerned about whether people are laughing with him or at him. It reminds me of the scene in Love Actually when the over the hill rock star Billy Mack is rerecording his hit song, but replacing the word "love" with the ill-fitting and overly cheesy "Christmas." Mack turns to his manager, and tells him that he thinks the new version is shit, after which, his manager replies "solid gold shit!" Antoine Dodson is making virtual, viral, gold shit.



Courtesy of the one and only Michal Meer, here's Antoine Dodson's BET performance. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RNky6v2ZSNI
Climbing in your windows and snatching your gold shit up,
G

Minaj, Ooh La La.

Anyone who has talked music with me in the last few weeks has heard about my obsession with Nicki Minaj. Nicki, first and foremost, is just plain awesome. She is the type of woman I would never have the gaul to be; every new Nicki verse I hear excites me more than the one before.

Initially, I was disgusted by Nicki. When I heard her verse in Young Money's "Bedrock," in which she explains how she would like to put "this pussy on your sideburns," I a) wanted to vomit, and b) wondered how they let this gross chick roll in the big leagues with the likes of Lil' Wayne and Drake. However, the more Nicki I listen to, the more I fall in love.

The first time I heard Nicki's verse on the godsend of a track "Monster," I knew she was on to something. Her verse makes the song, and that is certainly no easy task considering who else is featured on the track. To be the best in that song means not only knocking Kanye West, Jay Z, and Rick Ross out of the park, but that also means Nicki stole the spotlight from my hipster hearthrob Justin Vernon from Bon Iver, whose collaboration with Kanye had the potential to make my hip hop year. Also, anyone who refers to herself as the "black Hannah Montana" automatically has my undying love and affection.

Minaj not only has clever verses and funny nicknames on her resume; she is pretty damn culturally significant. Nicki is in the running to be one of the more influential females in modern popular culture. Her style is promiscuous and revealing, but there is more to it than that. Nicki brings my two favorite pastimes from Kindergarden, Barbie and pink foofy dresses, and somehow contorts them into risque sexual items fit for a female member of a world-renowned rap crew. The craziest part is Nicki is really good, like really, really good. In an interview with the famous New York radio station Hot 97 this summer, Kanye West explained that Nicki is "the scariest artist in the game right now." On her mixtape "Beam Me Up Scotty," Nicki proves Kanye right.

"Beam Me Up Scotty" is a great mix of songs you've heard before (Go Hard ft Lil Wayne and Best I Ever Had ft Drake), songs you've probably never heard before, and Nicki's life musings and commentary. In "Still I Rise," Nicki Minaj spends the opening verse referring to herself in the second person, saying things like "I mean she okay/but she ain't all that/ she ain't the next bitch/tell that bitch fall back" and "you know her last name Minaj/she's a lesbian." Then, of course, Nicki explains that "still I rise." Nicki also explains that she is in fact paving the way for future "real bitches," because "real if
"Nicki wins then all of ya'll gettin' meetings." Nicki knows she's good, knows she's making it, and that pretty soon--perhaps when her album Pink Friday drops on November 23--her haters will be entirely irrelevant.

Nicki's fuck the haters attitude, ridiculous attire, and overall rogue demeanor are clearly inspired by America's favorite free bitch, Lady Gaga. On Beam Me Up Scotty, when Nicki explains how she is "relevant in a world of irrelevant bitches" and encourages her fans to "be a bad bitch, never be a stupid bitch." Nicki, on Twitter, refers to her fans as "Barbz" and "Kens," much like Gaga's little monsters. Gaga has created a cultlike following of males and females both gay and straight, because she is just so crazy and convincing; she has created an empire for herself based mostly off shock value (and her undeniable talent).

Nicki is hip hop's Lady Gaga. She is shocking, she is crazy, she is a little much--but she has it. She has the brilliant social commentary lyrics; "my money's so tall that my Barbies couldn't climb it" is undeniably awesome. She is relevant and a bad bitch and she knows it.

Eagerly awaiting the day Nicki and Gaga collaborate,
G

It's all about connections.

Blogging may be the most pretentious trend of the 21st century, or at least a close second to tweeting. Anyone can come up with an idea or brilliant series of epiphanies that they so desperately need to share with the world. However, being the young idealistic college student I am, I for some reason have the notion that my rants, raves and ridiculous ideas are rare pearls of wisdom, or at least worthy of your eyes as your facebook-alternative procrastination tool.

SO, that being said, my earth-shattering, transcendent blueprint for this blog is to write about all the random ideas I pair together and why. If you dabble in popular culture, enjoy high brow references, the occasional obnoxious comment and maybe a witty pun here and there, you've come to the right place in cyberspace.

Love from a semi-ironic macbook,
G