World Star Chaos

 

In today’s world of captured on video fights and debauchery in the streets of America, there is one particular website that has not only cornered the market on videotaped fisticuffs in the urban community, but has become synonymous with the act of recording a fight via a cellphone: WORLDSTAR!!!  If you are in fight, and you hear someone shout out that clarion, you may want to step your game up; else you will find yourself yet another victim of internet ridicule.  For those not indoctrinated “Worldstar” refers to the website WorldStarHipHop.  The website itself features gossip in realm of hip-hop, release dates and other random social media entertainment, .however in the past few years it has become mostly known as the one stop for all things ratchet.  Men vs men, women vs women, men vs women, kids, kids vs. adults, cats vs. dogs & exotic fish…….if it can fight, it’s on Worldstar.   The website allows users to submit amateur videos that are then selected by the site's staff for publication. The videos fit into three neat categories: rap, sex or violence. And even more so, it’s 99.9% black people featured……..which brings me to my problem with the website and why I wish it would just die. 

I actually do remember WorldStar in the earlier days.  The internet was no longer new, but the advent of special interest sites were still growing in leaps day by day. Every other day you could find another website catering to a specific demographic or interest group.  At the time, like always, I was on a hip hop binge.  Anything I could find on my fav’rit artists, new artists, collabos etc., I consumed and at the time WSHH was one of the up & coming sites featuring hip hop news.  It was good shit too……very informative, touched all ranges of hip hop culture and music in every region. Positive stories, social commentary & cultural insight. Like any new toy though, after a while you lose touch.  It just doesn’t sparkle the same or something else has caught your eye…….so I lost touch with WSHH.  A few years ago, as the popularity of fight vids really started to pick up, I would get these mass emails or see them posted on Facebook, but what I began to notice was that a large majority of the links to these fights were coming from one site in particular. Worldstar?....is that you!?  It was almost unrecognizable now.  Just a barrage of weaves getting snatched, right crosses, uppercuts, low blows & sucker punches. Gone was the focus on the culture, but in its place is just pure ignorance.  Hmm…I guess one could draw a parallel between the climate of today’s music and the websites content, curious.  I doubt at this point if anyone even knows what the site used to be in its previous incarnation.  And in this new incarnation, I could only think about what once was.  I’m all for growth, and I understand that things evolve, but WSHH looked to have devolved. 

Yes, I have watched fight videos. In its early days, I would watch one on heartbeat…..but it wasn’t as prevalent then and even offered a degree of comic relief as the fights were usually exercises in futility from both parties involved or someone getting much deserved azz whipping for picking on someone else. Nor is it lost on me that WSHH is not the only site the features fights.  My problem is that there is nothing “hip hop” about WSHH anymore to me, it misrepresents the culture & only perpetuates a negative image.  All it does is show the worst of the black experience in America from coast to coast.  Nothing redeeming is to be found here, and it only reinforces the stereotype that black people are nothing but animals.  Honestly, when I watch the videos, that’s exactly what goes thru my mind……”nothing but animals….” 

 People being beaten by mobs or getting punched in the face just for living. The randomness of violence for entertainment. Such violent videos, shot by amateurs witnessing or participating in fights, have triggered at least six criminal investigations since April 2011 and highlighted what at least one sociologist calls the normalization of violence.  Fights being provoked for the sole purpose of being put on WSHH, watermarked by the battle cry “Worldstar!!” I’m sure the site is going nowhere anytime soon, but at least change the name to portray the reality of the content. How about World Star Niggarocity?...or World Star Coonery?! I think they both have a nice ring to it. Don’t you? Seems appropriate to me.  Does anyone at WSHH have any sense of responsibility? Lee O'Denat, CEO, said the sensibility of the "urban media" site and what gets picked to be featured on the home page each day are a matter of showing users what "really goes on the world." Then this dickhead goes on to add that he thinks it's stupid that viewers of his website would make or film a fight in order to get on the website, but can't be held responsible for those who do. Dude, are you serious right now?! Fuck you for even resorting to that half azz rationale for enabling that nonsense.  Granted you could make the argument, that if they don’t show it, someone else will. Okay fine,….but is that reason enough nowadays? Has shame gone so far out of style that we continually air dirty laundry for the world to see & identify with the black experience? How long is it gonna take before we see a murder taking place and we hear someone yell, “Worldstar!!”? Yeah, that may seem a bit farfetched……but at one point so was the idea of cell phones.

 Far be it for me to tell anyone what to do with their free time and web surfing, but I’m gonna pass on the buffoonery. I get no thrill seeing anyone beat up by bullies, mobs or psychopaths.  For now I will just keep scrolling by when I see it posted on my FB timeline, or delete the mass text I just got.  And I can’t even blame WSHH for the nonsense, however I recognize the hold they have on people’s eyes & minds, I would just hope that they would use that power a bit more responsibly.  Worldstar!

 

What's your thoughts on WorldStar Hip Hop and sites like it? Merely entertainment or encouraging violence? Leave your comments below.