No Need to Celebrate by Craig S. Jenkins

When I heard that World Star Hip Hop was taken down, I began celebrating with the rest of the "intelligent hip hop community". At the time, my twitter feed was mostly full of celebration and bewilderment, but there was one man that seemed genuinely upset at the reaction of bloggers and journalists. I immediately thought that this was a classic case of pseudo-hispteria-- where someone on the internet purposely chooses the opposite side of a big internet trend or argument just to be different and swim against the stream-- but then I thought, maybe he does have something to say? So, as I rolled my eyes at his final tweet comparing WSHH haters to female Smurfs, I asked Craig to write about it and told him I would post his reaction. To be honest, I thought he would never do it. I also thought he wouldn't have a good enough point for me to change my mind.

I was wrong.

By: Craig S. Jenkins

I need to start with a disclaimer. The views detailed below are not the views of Whiskey Teeth. The homie Ryan was courteous enough to offer me a forum for my wild and crazy thoughts. Well, technically, he kinda asked me to write about said wild and crazy thoughts, so maybe he is to blame for the existence of this piece? Anyhow:

Last night we had a quick scare. Last night it looked like World Star Hip Hop was gone for good. The site vanished briefly, and 50 Cent, who filed a lawsuit against them for using his likeness without permission back in 09, immediately took credit for the outage. 50 copped to lying, and it was later rumored that a stolen intellectual property complaint from a Youtube vlogger might have been to blame. Regardless of the culprit, the news about World Star potentially shuttering broke to more than a little premature gravestone tap dancing by plenty of happy hip hop bloggers. Personally, I didn’t see what was so funny.

Surely the almost unilateral glee World Star’s apparent death engendered is a function of people’s dissatisfaction with the content that the site hosts. The volatile cocktail of shameless stripper showcases, goon rapper music videos, industry gossip, and cell phone footage of public ass whoopings that is World Star’s daily bread rubs people the wrong way. It ain’t classy. The site as a whole is a bad look for hip hop, for humanity, for all bipedal life with eyes and ears, really. Now, I know what you’re thinking. “Then why are you defending them?”

Here goes nothing: Blog closures, whether they’re the product of government investigations (like the Thanksgiving clampdown that temporarily sidelined OnSmash), angry artists with a vendetta (50, you dirty, filthy liar, you!), or kneejerk Google/Yahoo/Wordpress/etc. crackdowns (too many sites to name), are not good news for anyone with a website. I don’t care what blog it is. I don’t care how foolish or how deplorable it is. The shit ain’t a victory. What it is is a sign that certain factions have their eyes trained on the online hip hop community, and they’re willing and able to destroy or severely impair sites at will. Ain’t nothin funny about that.

Cheering the closure of a blog just because you don’t like the content is self-righteous and shortsighted. Whether you like it or not, World Star deserves to exist. It paints as much of a picture of modern hip hop culture as any other site does. World Star’s is a seedy, creepy, pathetic, and outrageous picture, yes, but a real one nevertheless. If you don’t like their voice, sing louder. Don’t sit back and applaud when outside forces take action against them that don’t know either of you from a hole in the wall. It’s not constructive.

Last night on Twitter, I likened the behavior to “Smurfette laughing while Gargamel captures Vanity.” Point being, bloggers, instead of all the smirking, you should be paying careful attention. You should have your back up plan in place. You should know what to do if there’s an attack on your site. For all you know, you’re next. While you’re busy chuckling about another man’s downfall, yours might be in the works. That’s the problem with bloggers. Too many of y’all seem to think this is a game of oneupsmanship. This ain’t either me or him or her. When things go bad, we all suffer. Am I the only one that sees this?

I need a drink. Jameson, please?