The past week saw figures in hip-hop break new ground in online spaces

Livestream Bling

In a rare and frankly strange occasion, rap fans and gamers — and the intersecting population — came together when game streamer Ninja recruited Travis Scott and Drake into a livestream of Fortnite, which is currently the go-to survival co-op shooting game on streaming platform Twitch. The stream, which took place last Wednesday night, set a record, garnering 6,00,000 concurrent viewers and knocking out Twitch’s previous peak of 3,88,000.

Twitter naturally went into a meltdown of memes, especially after Drake revived Scott and appropriately quipped ‘God’s plan’, as per his latest hit single, which has everyone around the world reiterating in a free moment. The gaming session was also graced by Pittsburgh Steelers wide receiver JuJu Smith-Schuster... because, you know, sports.

Since the stream, the curiosity and popularity around Fortnite have grown, with reps for the game thanking newcomers for the new love. Plus, I’m sure Ninja’s subscriber count has gone up plenty.

Shameless Snaps

I had a creeping feeling that when Snapchat became more ad-driven, an ad or two of poor taste will inexorably pop up. But that expectation was surpassed and shattered when that ridiculous ‘Would You Rather’ game advertised a choice between slapping Rihanna and punching Chris Brown. For those who aren’t familiar with the musicians’ histories, Brown was convicted of assaulting then-girlfriend Rihanna, who came forward with the abuse reports. Years later, Rihanna is a hip-hop queen and Brown still has his career — typical.

Upon seeing the ad, Rihanna took to Snapchat’s rival and posted an Instagram story calling out, “You spent money to animate something that would intentionally bring shame to DV (domestic violence) victims and made a joke of it!” She then encouraged her fans to pull out of Snapchat, even after she was issued two apologies, which many did, causing Snapchat’s stock to plummet, costing them $800 million in market cap.

Maybe Snapchat should reconsider its logo and have the little ghost put its foot in its mouth.

Rants and ramblings from cyberspace