The Creator of WorldStarHipHop Plots His Second Act

Nov 06, 2015 · 14 comments
Mike (Texas)
It's a trash site whose sole target audience is blacks aged 12-35. If not for the smut on the site, it would just be another music video, prank, and sports clip site. The site won't or can't grow cause it expansion beyond the current demographic it serves is nearly impossible because to put it bluntly, white youth or those aged 12-35 have no desire to visit that site. He can't find investors cause the buying power of blacks 12-35 is minimal compared to that of whites 12-35; what could an investor possibly expect in return. Those are just facts, personally, I'm all for and support any expression that an individual can market. But, as far as this site; a few weeks ago it had a video of a white corrections officer who went into a pretty profound racist rant directed at blacks. The headline was titled white sheriff. The man was not law enforcement, but a corrections officer, yet WorldStar Hip Hop as a measure of attracting views, titled the video "racist sheriff officer". That is as low as you can get. I emailed them and told them of the inaccuracy but they never relabeled the video. This site is pure trash.
Troy K. (London)
I don’t approve of WSHH’s content or overall message. But if we believe in Capitalism, this is a simple act of finding a particular demand and satisfying it (legally). The American Dream is built on this ideal.
Sites like this will disappear when the demand of them does. It’s interesting to discover what influences people to find content like this attractive, but that’s a whole other debate.
An interesting doc about the founder and site was published by the Verge, here: https://youtu.be/DvwlYrPeSe8
JIm Jones (The Nati)
This dude promotes white hatred and is celebrated. Welcome to America!
JIm Jones (The Nati)
This is a perfect example of the problem with today's American culture: This thug is glorified as some sort of artist/entrepreneur, but he has contributed absolutely nothing to society. Nothing positive anyway.
This guy is a typical thug that makes his money off of others and has does nothing original. Good for you World Star! You're a picture of what's wrong with black culture. Absolutely disgusting.
Say It Loud (DC)
Great. Just what we (blacks) need: another rags to riches hip hop story celebrating mediocrity for the kids to continue their spectacular downward spiral out of society.

Keep up the good work!
Rich (<br/>)
WorldStarHipHop is the embodiment of all things tasteless.
John Stewart (New York, NY)
It's a real niche. Vh1 and other content creators have focused on appealing to certain demos and it's working. There's a large untapped audience. "A click is a click, a like is a like." It's a new world of colorblind metrics and the numbers don't lie.
NYC -&gt; Boston (NYC)
Wow, zero mention of the extensive misogyny promoted by the videos (showing women being beaten) and the comment section. Or the rampant racism that gets taken to a ridiculous level in the comments. Why does hip-hop culture get a pass?

That said, I love the site.
pj taintz (NY)
the racism is also in the videos themselves
ZenMasta (Washington, DC)
“Hip-hop is for the sex, the drugs, the violence, the beefs, the culture,”. You could have interviewed thousands of internet entrepreneurs who offer more positive content online. Apparently progressives and the companies advertising on his site don't seem to care that the content is destructive to children.
third.coast (earth)
Oh, good lord! I knew about the fights in McDonalds, the "Slap Heard Around the World," and the preternatural inability to hold a video camera in panoramic mode. But I had no idea about the busted cheater videos.

Curse you New York Times! I'm going down that rabbit hole.
pj taintz (NY)
if he wants his site to grow he needs to kick out the riff raff. simple as that

but the truth is riff raff make up about 80% of the hits to the site
Ted Pikul (Interzone)
Why not link to some of those videos? According to you, this man is an entrepreneur worthy of respect. Let's see some of his work.
Sleater (New York)
Thanks for this story. I had no idea who was behind *WorldStarHipHop,* which can sometimes reify and commodify the worst aspects of hip hop and urban culture, but which also presents important and distinctive cultural perspectives you usually do not see in the mainstream media.

I hope Mr. O'Denat can keep control of his company while figuring out a way to move forward. He seems to be wary enough not to be tricked into losing it all to some greedy, powerful hustler, which is a good thing.

Perhaps he might think about expanding its platforms: short films; web series; video games; ebooks; live streamed performances of some of the rappers; links to other black/latin/urban channels across the globe, in Africa, Latin America and elsewehere; and so on.