O'Denat, 38, 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." The company would not disclose how much it is worth, but O'Denat said it charges anywhere from $650 to $2,500 to post music videos and party promotion videos.
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.īut crime pays in most of these cases the website nets about 500 million impressions a month, according to its founder, Lee "Q" O'Denat, who started the site as a way to share lesser-known rap music but now envisions a World Star media empire. By them going ahead and wanting to release it and put it on the Internet, I feel they wanted the attention, they wanted to make themselves look like they were brave, they were strong. Why? Because it was one guy against three other people. "It was embarrassing, it was humiliating. "When I found out the video was online, I didn't want to see it," said Brandon White, 20, the Atlanta victim.
The videos fit into three neat categories: rap, sex or violence.Īnother egregious example occurred Saturday in Atlanta, where two of the teens accused of beating a young man they perceived to be gay had video cameras rolling during the alleged attack, which was uploaded to World Star Hip Hop and other websites that alerted police and prompted a federal investigation. Rather than onlookers' filming the beat down, victim Daniel Endera later told a reporter, "they should have at least called the cops."Įither way, the highlights make ideal video for World Star Hip Hop, which is a YouTube-like video website where users submit amateur videos that are then selected by the site's staff for publication. 8, 2012— - Cheering and shouting "World Star, baby," passengers aboard an NYC subway train were videotaped in November encouraging three young men to punch and kick a stranger who was hospitalized with injuries. From its begins as a G-Unit mixtape seller to one of the internet’s most controversial outlets, this is a brief history of WorldStarHipHop.Feb. Either way, he created a cultural phenomenon, and we’ll always remember him for that. According to some, Worldstar championed urban culture others questioned whether that image of urban culture was worth selling in the first place, especially if it confirmed black people’s worst stereotypes to some. The remote control is in your hand.” With Q’s logic, WorldStarHipHop is only giving us what we want.
“Why click on it? It’s like, why watch porno on HBO at midnight? You have the choice to watch what you want. “People want to watch an ugly side of someone then blame us for showing it, but what about the people actually doing it?” Q said in 2014. The famed videos often featured a victim, but the fact their popularity perhaps says more about society than the site’s creator. WorldStar capitalized on those innovations and dished out viral content at an expeditious rate. In 2008, cellphone footage was becoming the primary medium, and social media was on its way to becoming the standard way of connecting. Though it’s past its prime in 2018, WorldStar was more ubiquitous than your favorite blogs during the height of its popularity. But what’s objectively true is that the website gave the people what they wanted: Notably, music exclusives, viral bits of comedy, violent fight videos, and sex acts. Whether you truly believe WorldStar is simply Chuck D as a millennial with a cellphone camera is on you.
Many of the profiles about the late WorldStarHipHop founder Lee “Q” O’Denat include two of his most common defenses: That the site features the “the good, the bad, and the ugly” of urban culture, and how it’s the “CNN of the ghetto.”
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