Will It Spread? Facebook Gangsta

What’s It About: The original Facebook Gangsta raps about the trials and tribulations of being so damn good at social networking sites. Quality lyric writing, flawless cinematography and editing, and committed performances from Sean Modica and Arthur Colombino keep the beat pumping.

Premiered: May 19, 2008.

Viral Qualities: Catchy rap song satirizing Facebook (which has recently proven to be viral gold). Brief appearance by a small dog.

Star Power: None, save the Facebook profile of the Internet’s favorite presidential candidate..

Drawbacks: The white-dudes-rapping genre is a seriously overloaded one, and after Lazy Sunday, PaxilBack, and My Entourage Gives You the Back Massage, it’s quite possible the Internet just isn’t interested in watching another one (no matter how well done it might be).

Mash-up Potential: Decent, especially if someone takes this approach and creates, say, Twitter Gangsta. (My suggested lyrics: “Send my tweets out to the ladies / Overwhelmed by DMs oh so crazy / I’ll follow you baby, no doubt ’bout that / But don’t expect an @ unless you be phat”)

Current Viral Status: As of 3 pm today, 15,500 views on YouTube, 2,800 views on Vimeo.

Spread-factor (scale of 1-10, 10 being Lazy Sunday): 8. The fact that this video isn’t exactly reinventing the wheel definitely works against it. But it’s extremely well-executed artistically and technically. Facebook Gangsta doesn’t have a lot to say about the world, but it has a lot of fun saying it.

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