This post isn't going to get flagged (or at least not as quickly) because it mentions YC itself, and YC is kid-gloves about moderating posts about YC.
But this is a deeply stupid story with a lede that basically says "I'm unfamiliar with even the most most famous 90s hip-hop". Tan, like many, many, many Internet commenters before him, was quoting Tupac's Hit 'Em Up, which, unless you think Tupac was literally calling out hits on Chino XL, was not intended to be a true threat at the time, and certainly couldn't reasonably be taken as one today.
People come up with all sorts of cringey rationalizations for how this is anything more than someone on Twitter faceplanting a dad joke (sorry, but 2Pac is now dad music, I don't make the rules). That's because the rationalizations are more narratively interesting, which is a pretentious way of saying "fun", and fun beats reason every single time.
EFfective local politics? Definitely not. But then, if you oppose what Tan is about in SF, that's a good thing, not a bad thing.
This is an off-topic dupe story and by rights it shouldn't be on the front page, but, whatever.
I dunno, most dad jokes don't read as death threats to the majority of the population. Suggesting it's everyone else's fault for not being familiar with "the most famous 90s hip-hop" isn't very convincing.
Listen to Ken White's podcast or read his blog to learn that threats are evaluated in the context they're delivered in. "Die slowly" is a meme. In fact: this has been a running joke since at least nineteen ninety-nine:
I was in grade school in 1999. A large portion of the population is as young or younger than me and has had no exposure to 90’s hip hop. Gary should keep that in mind next time he tweets.
And as for “context,” is there a medium that provides less context than a tweet?
(For the record, I'm not American but frequent HN often; I have never heard of this song and while the name "Tupac" rings a distant bell, I didn't know if it was a person or a place.)
Hiphop fan here, Tupac has maybe dozens of diss or “threat” tracks in his discography. Maybe CEO shouldn’t be quoting Tupac lyrics in the first place since I am pretty sure hit em up has probably influenced a lot of murders, not just Biggie.
As a resident dad joke expert: Can you explain what exactly is a 'dad joke' about quoting a line about wishing someone to die slowly? Where's the joke or the funny? Where's the cringe pun?
>> unless you think Tupac was literally calling out hits on Chino XL, was not intended to be a true threat at the time, and certainly couldn't reasonably be taken as one today.
Huh?
There were whole articles written about the song and the context of the time in which it was written. Tupac lived a notoriously violent life and saw himself as a legit street gangster despite the actual reality of the opposite.
From 2017:
That opening line—that egregious, confrontational, hate-filled opening line—was one of the most unforgettable utterances ever committed to wax by the late Tupac Shakur. It’s been 20 years since the release of 2Pac’s scathingly brutal diss track “Hit ’Em Up,” a song that came to embody the venom behind the Death Row/Bad Boy beef of the mid-’90s and an easy reference for the antagonistic figure many saw 2Pac as in his final months on this earth.
There was a palpable sense of dread hanging over hip-hop in mid-’96.
The final paragraph of the article sums it up:
In the wake of Shakur’s murder, “Hit ’Em Up” would become a chilling epitaph for a feud that seemed to spiral out of control—even more so after the Notorious B.I.G. met a similar fate in March 1997. Taken on its own merit, it’s one of the greatest diss records in hip-hop history; but attached to the moment, it was a lot more than that. Something more volatile. Something more dangerous.
No, to all of this. No, this is an unserious argument about an unserious event. If he'd quoted Fairport Convention singing about murdering dudes with beaten swords, I insist that we would be having an isomorphic argument right now. About, like, drive-by swordings in the middle ages, and the implied threats thereof. No, I shan't have it.
you think given the context between Biggie and Tupac, where both artists were later violently murdered, Hit'em up, which was one of the rap beef songs of all time, did not include any genuine threats of violence?
I'm not saying that Garry Tan was threatening to, as in the original song, shoot up the supes with AKs, or shoot them in the back with the Mac, or cut their young ass up, leave them in pieces, or snatch their ugly ass off the streets, or get their caps peeled, but I think it would be very strange to rationalize that particular Tupac song as one that was not threatening murder
"I didn't really mean it, I was quoting someone from several decades ago that everyone should have known about as long as they were alive then, interested in the person originally quoted and happened to also know about the quote!"
But this is a deeply stupid story with a lede that basically says "I'm unfamiliar with even the most most famous 90s hip-hop". Tan, like many, many, many Internet commenters before him, was quoting Tupac's Hit 'Em Up, which, unless you think Tupac was literally calling out hits on Chino XL, was not intended to be a true threat at the time, and certainly couldn't reasonably be taken as one today.
People come up with all sorts of cringey rationalizations for how this is anything more than someone on Twitter faceplanting a dad joke (sorry, but 2Pac is now dad music, I don't make the rules). That's because the rationalizations are more narratively interesting, which is a pretentious way of saying "fun", and fun beats reason every single time.
EFfective local politics? Definitely not. But then, if you oppose what Tan is about in SF, that's a good thing, not a bad thing.
This is an off-topic dupe story and by rights it shouldn't be on the front page, but, whatever.